mN^HmsTO^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 

COLLEGE 


PRESENTED  BY 

Mrs.    J.   R.   Sackrioer 


HISTOEY    OF    ENGLAND 


XVIII™  CENTUEY 


VOL.  L 


I 


ISTOEY  OF  ENGLAND 


IN    THE 


EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 


BY 


WILLIAM   EDWARD    HAETPOLE    LECKY 


VOLUME    I. 


NEW  YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

549  AND  551  BROADWAY. 
18V8. 


•^'■•'^^"^fi^iL,, 


PEEFACE. 


The  histokt  of  a  nation  may  be  written  in  so  many  different 
ways  that  it  may  not  be  useless,  in  laying  these  volumes  before 
the  public,  to  state  in  a  few  words  the  plan  which  I  have 
adopted,  and  the  chief  objects  at  which  I  have  aimed. 

I  have  not  attempted  to  write  the  history  of  the  period  I 
have  chosen  year  by  year,  or  to  give  a  detailed  account  of 
military  events  or  of  the  minor  personal  and  party  incidents 
which  form  so  large  a  part  of  political  annals.  It  has  been  my 
object  to  disengage  from  the  great  mass  of  facts  those  which 
relate  to  the  permanent  forces  of  the  nation,  or  which  indicate 
some  of  the  more  enduring  features  of  national  life.  The 
growth  or  decline  of  the  monarchy,  the  aristocracy,  and  the 
democracy,  of  the  Church  and  of  Dissent,  of  the  agricultural, 
the  manufacturing,  and  the  commercial  interests ;  the  in- 
creasing power  of  Parliament  and  of  the  press ;  the  history  of 
political  ideas,  of  art,  of  manners,  and  of  belief ;  the  changes 
that  have  taken  place  in  the  social  and  economical  condition 
of  the  people ;  the  influences  that  have  modified  national 
character ;  the  relations  of  the  mother  country  to  its  depen- 
dencies, and  the  causes  that  have  accelerated  or  retarded  the 
VOL.  I.  1 


vi  PEEFACE. 

advancement  of  the  latter,  form  the  main  subjects  of  this 

book. 

In  order  to  do  justice  to  them  within  moderate  limits  it  is 
necessary  to  suppress  much  that  has  a  purely  biographical, 
party,  or  military  interest ;  and  I  have  also  not  hesitated  in 
some  cases  to  depart  from  the  strict  order  of  chronology.  The 
history  of  an  institution  or  a  tendency  can  only  be  written  by 
collecting  into  a  single  focus  facts  that  are  spread  over  many 
years,  and  such  matters  may  be  more  clearly  treated  according 
to  the  order  of  subjects  than  according  to  the  order  of  time. 

It  will  appear  evident,  I  think,  from  the  foregoing  sketch, 
that  this  book  differs  widely  from  the  very  valuable  history  of 
Lord  Stanhope,  which  covers  a  great  part  of  the  same  period. 
Two  writers,  dealing  with  the  same  country  and  the  same  time, 
must  necessarily  relate  many  of  the  same  events;  but  our 
plans,  our  objects,  and  the  classes  of  facts  on  which  we  have 
especially  dwelt,  are  so  very  different  that  our  books  can  hardly, 
I  hope,  come  into  any  real  competition ;  and  I  should  much 
regret  if  it  were  thought  that  the  present  work  had  been 
written  in  any  spirit  of  rivalry,  or  with  any  wish  to  depreciate 
the  merits  of  its  predecessor.  Lord  Stanhope  was  not  able  to 
bring  to  his  task  the  artistic  talent,  the  power,  or  the  philoso- 
phical insight  of  some  of  his  contemporaries;  but  no  one  can 
have  studied  with  care  the  period  about  which  he  wrote  without 
a  feeling  of  deep  respect  for  the  range  and  accuracy  of  his 
research,  for  the  very  imusual  skill  which  he  displayed  in  the 
difficult  art  of  selecting  from  great  multitudes  of  facts  those 
which  are  truly  characteristic  and  significant,  and,  above  all, 
for  his  transparent  honesty  of  purpose,  for  the  fulness  and  fair- 


PKEFACE.  Vll 

ness  with  which  he  seldom  failed  to  recount  the  faults  of  those 
with  whom  he  agreed  and  the  merits  of  those  from  whom  he 
differed.  This  last  quality  is  one  of  the  rarest  in  history,  and 
it  is  especially  admirable  in  a  writer  who  had  himself  strong 
party  convictions,  who  passed  much  of  his  life  in  active  politics, 
and  who  was  often  called  upon  to  describe  contests  in  which  his 
own  ancestors  bore  a  part. 

To  the  great  courtesy  of  the  authorities  of  the  French 
Foreign  Office  I  am  indebted  for  copies  of  some  valuable 
letters  relating  to  the  closing  days  of  Queen  Anne;  and  I 
must  also  take  this  opportunity  of  acknowledging  the  un- 
wearied kindness  I  have  received  from  Sir  Bernakd  Burke, 
Ulster  King  of  Arms,  during  my  investigation  of  those  Irish 
State  Papers  which  he  has  arranged  so  admirably  and  which 
he  knows  so  well. 

London:  November  1877. 


t 


CONTENTS 

OF 

THE    FIRST    VOLUME. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAOE 

Vicissitudes  of  Whigs  and  Tories 1 

Not  true  that  the  parties  have  exchanged  their  principles  .     .         2 

The  Eevolution  much  more  due  to  special  than  to  general  causes  .         6 


Many  general  influences  luid  long  teen  inimical  to  Freedom 

The  decline  of  the  yeomen 

Eestrictions  on  the  political  influence  of  the  commercial  classes 

Subserviency  of  the  Judges 

Intellectual  tendency  towards  despotism  .... 

Growth  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Eight  of  Kings 

Summary  of  the  causes  of  the  Eevolution        .... 
Skill  with  which  the  Whig  leaders  availed  themselves  of  their 

opportunities ■         .         . 

Part  played  by  general  and  particular  causes  in  history 
Unpopularity  of  the  Eevolutionary  Government 
Strength  of  the  English  hatred  of  foreigners  .... 
It  acted  at  first  in  favour  of  the  Eevolution        .... 
And  was  strengthened  by  the  Protestant  feelings  of  the  country 
Dangers  to  Protestantism  in  Europe         ..... 


10 

13 
14 

17 
19 
20 
20 
20 
The  jealousy  of  foreigners  gradually  turns  against  the  Eevolution         25 

Foreign  Policy 

The  Spanish  Succession        .        .        . 26 

England  desires  the  acceptance  of  the  will  of  Charles  II.         .         .  27 

Change  of  feeling  produced  by  the  invasion  of  Flanders    .         .     .  29 
Formation  and  prospects  of  the  Grand  Alliance       .         .         .         .31 

Eecognition  of  the  Pretender  by  Lewis  XIV 32 

Strong  warlike  feeling.     Dissolution  of  Parliament  and  triumph  of 

the  Whigs         .        ,        . 33 


X  CONTENTS   OF 

PAGE 

Death  of  William 33 

Tory  syxapathies  of  Anne      .    ' 33 

New  Tory  Ministry  and  Parliament 35 

The  exigencies  of  foreign  policy  draw  Godolphin  and  Marlborough 

towards  the  Whigs     ....                  36 

Partial  transformation  of  the  Ministry 37 

Blenheim *" 

Anger  of  the  clergy  against  the  Queen 40 

Great  Whig  majority  of  1705 41 

Proo-ress  of  the  alienation  of  the  Government  from  the  Tories        .  41 

Chief  events  of  the  Godolphin  Ministry 42 

Government  at  length  completely  Whig 45 

Alienation  of  the  Queen.     The  Ministers  depend  mainly  for  their 

power  on  the  continuance  of  the  war      .                 ....  46 

Negotiations  of  1706 ^^ 

And  of  1709 .     .  50 

Marlborough  refused  the  position  of  Captain-General     ...  54 

TJi^  Church  OjJjJosition 

The  Sacheverell  case 55 

Downfall  of  the  Whigs C4 

Coincidence  of  great  ecclesiastical  influence  in  England  with  great 

political  and  intellectual  activity 65 

Relations  of  the  clergy  to  the  Pievolution :  the  abjuration  oath        .  67 

Exaltation  of  Charles  1 70 

The  miracle  of  the  royal  touch 73 

Strength  of  the  Chui-ch  in  England 80 

Its  gains  and  losses  by  the  Reformation 80 

Poverty  and  low  social  position  of  the  clergy 82 

Effect  of  the  Revolution  in  weakening  their  power           ...  86 

Growth  of  the  Latitudinarian  party.     Burnet 87 

Change  in  the  tone  of  the  pulpit 91 

The  non- juror  theology 93 

Conflict  between  the  lower  clergy  and  the  bishops           ...  95 

Divisions  in  Convocation 97 

Several  Church  measures  carried  under  Anne           ....  98 

History  of  the  Occasional  Conformity  Bill 100 

Conduct  of  the  Whig  party 102 

The  Schism  Act 103 

Political  and  religious  liberty  in  great  danger         ....  105 

Jteviem  of  Foreign  Policy 

Deaths  in  the  French  and  Austrian  royal  families       .         .         .     .  106 

Military  situation 107 

Conferences  of  Gertruydenberg 107 

Reasons  for  a  peace 108 

Inevitable  dissolution  of  the  alliance 110 


¥ 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME.  xi 

FAQB 

Wisdom  of  recognising  the  title  of  Philip  V 112 

Hostility  of  the  new  Government  to  Marlborough       .        .        .     .  115 

Secret  negotiations  and  preliminaries 117 

Conference  at  Utrecht  .        .        .        .                 117 

England  abandons  her  allies .        .  120 

Disasters  that  follow 123 

Violent  proceedings  at  home    .        .        .   * 123 

Fall  of  Marlborough 124 

His  character  and  career 125 

The  Peace  of  Utrecht 133 

Abandonment  of  the  Catalans 136 

Keflections  on  the  Peace 137 

Strenffth  and  weakness  of  tlie  Government 

Characters  of  its  leaders 140 

Strength  of  the  Jacobite  party  throughout  the  kingdom     .        .     .  141 

Attitude  of  leading  politicians  towards  it 143 

The  Protestant  succession  in  great  danger 145 

Eefusal  of  the  Pretender  to  become  a  Protestant    ....  149 

Forms  the  chief  obstacle  to  his  success 1 50 

Advantages  of  the  Whigs 153 

The  Commercial  Treaty 154 

Its  failure  weakens  the  Ministry 157 

General  Election.     Clerical  and  Jacobite  agitation     .        .        .     .  158 

Divergence  of  Oxford  and  Bolingbroke     • 161 

Attitude  of  the  opposing  parties.     Intentions  of  Bolingbroke    .     .  162 

Policy  of  Swift 170 

Dismissal  of  Oxford 175 

Jacobite  designs  of  Bolingbroke.     His  intended  Ministry      .         .175 

The  Queen  is  seized  with  a  mortal  illness 177 

Conduct  of  Shrewsbury,  Argyle,  and  Somerset        ....  178 

Shrewsbury  made  Treasurer 179 

Preparations  to  secure  the  Hanoverian  succession    .        ,        .        .179 

Queen  dies ...  179 

George  I.  proclaimed 180 

Attitude  of  Parliament  and  of  parties 180 

Formation  of  a  Whig  Ministry 182 


CHAPTER   II. 

Analysis  of  tlie  Whig  Party.     1.  The  Aristocracy 

Their  remarkable  liberality  in  England      .        .        .        ,  .  184 

Their  influence  in  raising  public  labour  to  honour  ....  186 

In  averting  unscrupulous  legislation 190 


xii  CONTENTS  OF 

PA6B 

In  making  government  popular 193 

In  siostaining  patriotic  feelings 193 

In  bringing  young  men  into  politics 194 

Other  uses  of  the  peerage 195 

Its  evils 196 

Moderation  of  the  English  aristocracy 199 

Peerage  Bill  of  Stanhop'e 200 

Great  influence  of  the  aristocracy  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution    .  202 

2.  The  Commercial  Classes 

The  natural  representatives  of  political  progress     ....  202 

And  of  religious  toleration 202 

Immigration  of  Refugees 204 

Its  importance  in  the  history  of  industry 207 

EfEect  on  the  Whig  party 209 

Growth  of  industrial  influence  and  prosperity  in  England  .         .    .  209 
Effect  of  the  funding  system  and  of  the  great  mercantile  corpora- 
tions in  strengthening  the  Whi^s 215 

Political  corruption  by  rich  merchants 217 

Summary  of  the  political  influence  of  the  commercial  classes        .  218 

3.  The  NoTiConformists 

Their  position  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution 219 

How  far  the  Revolution  favoured  religious  liberty  ....  220 

The  Toleration  Act 220 

The  Comprehension  scheme 221 

Position  of  the  Quakers 221 

Their  affirmation  allowed  instead  of  oaths 221 

Increased  facility  for  levying  tithes     . 222 

Jacobitism  under  Anne  very  hostile  to  Dissenters  .        .        .        .223 

Impeachment  of  Tory  statesmen 225 

Growing  discontent 227 

Bremen  and  Verden 228 

Insurrection  of  1715 .  229 

Languor  of  public  opinion.     The  Septennial  Act         .        .        .    .  234 

Decline  of  the  Monarchical  Sentiment  in  England 

Multiplication  of  disputed  successions  throughout  Europe      .        .  235 

Decay  of  the  doctrine  of  Divine  right 236 

The  party  interest  of  the  Tories  hostile  to  the  reigning  King         .  237 

The  respect  for  law  opposed  to  high  monarchical  views      .         .    .  238 

Influences  favourable  to  the  royal  power  were  overbalanced  .        .  238 

Increased  simplicity  of  the  Court 239 

Disappearance  of  the  miracle  of  the  royal  touch      ....  239 

Lingering  traces  among  the  Stuarts 240 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME.  xiii 

PAGE 

Growth  of  party  government  diminishes  monarchical  authority    .  241 

Methods  by  which  the  Whig  party  strengthened  their  power      .    .  246 

Close  alliance  with  France 247 

Peace  of  Eastadt 249 

Disturbances  in  Spain 250 

Career  of  Alberoni 252 

Failure  and  dismissal 264 

General  pacification  of  Europe  strengthened  the  Government        .  267 

Decline  of  the  Ecclexiastical  Spirit 

Growth  of  Scepticism — its  different  effects  on  Churches     .        .  269 
Political  results  of  the  Trinitarian  controversy  and  of  the  writings 

of  Hoadly 270 

Indefinite  prorogation  of  Convocation 271 

Banishment  of  Atterbury          .......  273 

Manner  in  which  it  was  received 274 

Religious  Legislation  of  the  Wings 

Discussions  on  the  Sacramental  Test.   Its  history  and  effects        .  274 

Unsuccessful  efforts  to  repeal  it 276 

Repeal  of  the  Schism  and  Occasional  Conformity  Acts  .        .        .  279 

Measures  in  favour  of  the  Irish  Presbyterians 280 

Relaxations  of  the  English  test 280 

Measures  in  favour  of  the  Quakers 281 

Revival  of  the  Bill  for  Naturalising  foreign  Protestants  .        .        .  282 

The  Jewish  Naturalisation  Act    . 283 

Popular  disturbances.     Repeal  of  the  Act 285 

Intolerance  not  confined  to  the  Anglicans  or  High  Churchmen  .    .  287 

Repeal  of  the  law  against  witchcraft 288 

Rectification  of  the  calendar .        .    .  289 

The  position  of  the  Catholics  unimproved        .....  290 

Peculiarity  of  the  position  of  Catholicism  in  Europe  .        .        .    .  291 

And  in  England 293 

New  laws  against  Catholics  in  England 297 

Laws  against  Catholics  in  the  Colonies 299 

And  against  those  in  Ireland.    The  Treaty  of  Limerick       .        .    .  301 

The  Irish  penal  code  not  due  to  any  rebellion          ....  303 

Laws  depriving  the  Irish  Catholics  of  all  civil  life      .         .        .    .  307 

Laws  prohibiting  Catholic  education        ......  309 

Laws  affecting  property        .        .        . 310 

Laws  preventing  intermarriage  of  Catholics  and  Protestants          .  312 

Laws  affecting  domestic  life        .        . 313 

Laws  affecting  religious  worship      . 316 

Degree  in  which  the  code  was  enforced 320 

lis  effects .        .  326 


2iv  CONTENTS   OF 

PAGE 

Condition  of  the  Catholics  in  England 328 

And  in  Scotland 336 

Measures  relating  to  Unitarians,  Arians,  and  Sceptics         .         .    .  337 

Eapid  growth  of  religious  indifEerentism  in  England      .         .         .  339 


CHAPTER    III. 

Monotony  of  English  party  politics.  Tories  still  esteemed  Jacobite  342 

Policy  and  partial  restoration  of  Bolingbroke 342 

Schism  of  the  Whigs  in  1717    .         .                  345 

Partial  reconciliation  in  1720 347 

The  South  Sea  catastrophe 348 

Complete  ascendency  of  Walpole •    •  350 

Sketch  of  his  life       .        .         .        • 351 

Ministry  of  Waljpole 

His  skill  in  managing  men 355 

His  care  in  avoiding  violent  concussions  of  opinion        .         .         .  356 

His  measures  to  reconcile  the  country  gentry  to  the  dynasty         .  357 

His  prudent  religious  policy 358 

Instances  of  his  sagacity  of  judgment 359 

His  financial  skill 362 

Great  prosperity  of  the  country 363 

Proceedings  relating  to  the  National  Debt,   Arguments  for  National 

Debts 364 

Their  dangers 365 

Erroneous  estimates  of  the  financial  capacities  of  the  country       .  368 

Connection  between  the  Revolution  and  the  National  Debt       .     .  369 

The  sinking  fund  of  Walpole 371 

His  deference  to  public  opinion  combined  with  great  absolutism 

in  the  Cabinet 372 

His  moderation  to  opponents  has  been  exaggerated        .        .        .  374 

His  pacific  policy 376 

Treaty  between  Spain  and  Austria  in  1725 377 

Siege  of  Gibraltar 379 

Negotiations  for  peace 380 

Peace  of  Seville  and  Peace  of  Vienna 382 

War  of  the  Polish  Succession 384 

Military  sentiment  of  the  King  and  country 385 

Menacing  progress  of  France 386 

Walpole  maintains  peace 389 

His  ascendency  not  due  to  great  eloquence.     Oratory  not  supreme 

in  Parliament 391 

Summary  of  the  merits  of  Walpole 393 


THE  FIRST   VOLUME.  XV 

PAGE 

His  D''feets 

Low  political  honour 393 

Want  of  decorum .         .    .  394 

Corruption.     History  of  Parliamentary  corruption           .         .         .  396 

Deo-ree  in  which  the  guilt  of  it  attaches  to  Walpole  .         .         .    .  399 

His  influence  over  young  men 401 

Eeport  of  the  Committee  of  Inquiry .402 

Effect  of  the   language  of    Walpole    on    political    morality    in 

England 404 

Elements  of  Opposition 

Pulteney ^^^ 

Carteret ^^^ 

Chesterfield *1^ 

The  Boy  Patriots 410 

The  Tories         ...  411 

Position  of  Bolingbroke 411 

The  Prince  of  Wales •         •         •         .412 

Death  of  the  Queen.     Isolation  of  Walpole 414 

Foreign  TroiMes 

Disputes  with  Spain 414 

The  Family  Compact .    .     415 

Jenkins  ears 

Declaration  of  war.     First  Expeditions        ...  .    .     419 

Death  of  the  Emperor.    Weakness  of  Maria  Theresa      .         .        .419 

4.91 
Frederick  II •    •     ^■"- 

The  succession  of  Berg  and  Juliers 422 

Claims  to  Silesia *-^ 

Invasion  of  Silesia.     Coalition  against  Maria  Theresa    .        .        -424 

Policy  of  Walpole 425 

Subsidy  to  the  Empress.    Neutrality  of  Hanover    .        .        .        .426 

FaU  of  Walpole 428 

Euin  of  the  influence  of  Pulteney 430 

Failure  of  the  impeachment  of  Walpole 431 

His  last  days 4 

The  new  Ministry 

Convention  of  the  Austrians  with  Frederick 434 

Austrian  victories  in  Bohemia  and  Bavaria 43.5 

Charles  VIL  crowned  Emperor 435 

Frederick  breaks  the  Convention.     Battle  of  Czaslau  .        .    .     435 

Peace  of  Breslau 435 

Expulsion  of  the  French  from  Bohemia        .  ■      .         •  .    .     436 

Death  of  Fleury 437 

Eapid  changes  of  fortune  iu  Italy        .  ...  .437 


CONTENTS  OF 

PAGE 

Services  of  the  British  fleet                       438 

The  Austrians  completely  victorious  in  Germany         .         .         .    .  438 

The  Dutch  enter  the  war.  Battle  of  Dettingen  ....  439 
Revulsion  of  feeling   in   England.     Ambitious  views   of   Maria 

Theresa 440 

Exaggerated  war  measures  of  England 441 

Alleged  subordination  of  English  to  Hanoverian  interests          .    .  442 

Unpopularity  of  Carteret 445 

Death  of  Lord  Wilmington.    Ascendency  of  the  Pelhams  .        .    .  445 

Henry  Pelham 446 

Abortive  attempt  of  the  French  to  invade  England  .  .  .  .  447 
French  and  Spanish  fleet  escapes  from  Toulon  in  spite  of  the 

English 448 

Brilliant  campaign  of  the  French  in  Flanders 448 

Interrupted  by  the  Austrian  invasion  of  Alsace        ....  449 

Frederick  renews  the  war    .        .        •        .        .        .                 .    .  449 

Capture  of  Prague  with  its  garrison 451 

The  Emperor  reinstated  in  Munich 451 

Frederick  driven  into  Silesia 451 

French  capture  Friburg 452 

Italian  campaigns  in  1744 452 

1745.     Offensive  alliance  between  England,  Holland,  Austria,  and 

Saxony 453 

Death  of  Charles  VII 453 

eace  between  Austria  and  Bavaria.   The  Duke  of  Lorraine  elected 

Emperor 453 

Victories  of  the  Prussians.   Peace  of  Dresden  between  Austria  and 

Prussia 454 

Insurrection  of  Genoa.    French  and  Spaniards  victorious  in  Italy  .  455 

French  campaign  in  Flanders.    Battle  of  Fontenoy  and  its  results  455 

The  Jacobite  insurrection  of  1745 456 

General  incapacity  of  the  British  commanders 456 

Successes  of  the  navy 458 

Italian  campaigns  of  1746 459 

Victories  of  the  French  in  Flanders  and  HoUand    ....  460 

Failure  of  the  attempt  of  the  King  to  displace  Pelham      .        .    .  461 

Re-establishment  of  the  Ministry 461 

Condition  of  Europe  called  urgently  for  peace 462 

Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle 462 

Reduction  of  the  army 466 

Foundation  of  Halifax 466 

Financial  measures  of  Pelham      .         t 467 

Great  predominance  of  the  commercial  spirit  in  Parliament  .         .  469 

Anxiety  for  Parliamentary  reform  in  the  country         .         .         .     .  470 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME.  ZVU 

PAGE 

Parliamentary  Comijption  and  Tyranny 

Simultaneous  growth  of  the  power  of  the  Commons  and  the  influ- 
ence of  Government  upon  its  members  since  the  Revolution         .  470 
Arbitrary  proceedings  of  the  Lower  House.  The  Kentish  petitioners  473 

The  Aylesbury  election 474 

Parliamentary  censorship  of  the  Press 474 

Parliamentary  privilege 476 

Scandalous  proceedings  in  the  trials  of  disputed  elections      .        .  476 

Parliamentary  reporting  forbidden.     Its  history         .        .        .    .  479 

Measure  against  bribery 484 

Measures  diminishing  the  number  of  pensioners  and  placeholders 

in  Parliament 484 

Attempts  to  shorten  the  duration  of  Parliament.     Effects  of  the 

Septennial  Act 486 

Redeeming  Features  of  Parliament 

Character  of  the  English  upper  classes             ■>....  488 

Constant  infusion  of  young  members 488 

The  representation  of  the  counties  and  of  the  large  towns      .        .  489 

Fear  of  the  Pretender 490 

Attention  paid  to  popular  wishes 491 

Comparative  simplicity  of  English  politics 491 

Low  standard  of  political  honour     .......  491 

Exclusive  employment  of  Government  patronage  for  political  ends  492 
Danger   of  leaving  science   and  literature   to  the   unrestricted 

operation  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand     .        .        .        .    .  493 

Methods  that  have  been  adopted  for  encouraging  them  .                 .  496 

Government  patronage  of  literature  under  Anne          .        .        .  500 

Effects  of  the  degradation  of  literature  under  the  first  Georges     .  501 

Patronage  of  Queen  Caroline 503 

Decline  of  political  enthusiasm         .......  505 

Attitude  of  the  nation  in  1745 .  506 

Browne's  Estimate   ..........  509 

Superiority  of  the  English  Government  to  most  Continental  ones  510 

Confusion  of  party  qualities.   Natural  history  of  Whigs  and  Tories  512 

Reforms  in  Scotland 515 

Legislation  about  Public  Order 

On  gin-drinking.    History  of  Drunkenness 516 

Extreme  danger  of  London  streets.     The  Mohocks          .        .        .  522 

The  inefficiency  of  the  watchmen 523 

Street  robberies 524 

Abolition  of  the  privileges  of  the  Mint        ...                 .    .  526 

Measures  for  the  better  lighting  of  London 527 


Xviii  CONTENTS   OF 

PAGE 

Formation  of  a  new  police  force 528 

Frequency  of  riots ^29 

Wrecking.    Laws  to  repress  it 529 

TJie  Marriage  Ad  of  Lord  Eardioicke 

Clandestine  marriages 531 

English  legislation  on  marriage 532 

Difference  between  the  secular  and  the  theological  aspects  of 

marriage '^^^ 

Divorce          .....  534 

Growth  of  the  secular  view  of  marriage  in  English  law  .        .        .  538 

Success  of  Lord  Hardwicke's  Act 539 

Decline  of  the  spirit  of  philanthropy  and  reform    .         .         .         .540 

Berkeley -540 

Oglethorpe ^^^ 

Condition  of  debtors'  prisons 542 

Foundation  of  Georgia 545 

Neglected  condition  of  the  navy  a^d  army 546 

Atrocious  penal  system     .         .         .         * 547 

The  nation  assuming  rapidly  its  modern  aspect 550 

Growth  of  tlie  Modern  Military  System 

Improvements  in  the  art  of  war  led  to  standing  armies  .         .         .  552 

History  of  the  Mutiny  Act 552 

Opinion  of  Blackstone      .        • 655 

Jealousy  of  the  Army 555 

History  of  barracks 557 


CHAPTER  IV. 

JVational  Tastes  and  Manners 

Growth  of  newspapers  and  magazines      ...         •        •        .  S60 

Coarseness  of  manners 663  • 

Gambling 564 

Gardening 567 

Architecture 569 

Painting 570 

Music.     Growth  of  the  Opera 575 

Career  of  Handel 577 

The  Drama.     Its  immorality 583 

Legislation  on  the  subject 587 

<  The  Beggars'  Opera  ' 587 

Depression  of  taste  ..........  588 

The  Shakespearean  revival 589 


THE  FIRST  VOLUME. 


XIX 


PAGE 

Garrick °^^|^ 

Puritanical  opposition  to  the  theatre 593 

Amusements  with  animals 5^*^ 


Watering-places    . 
Rise  of  sea-bathing  . 

Character  of  country  life 

Condition  of  the  poor 

Increase  of  London 

Town  amusements    . 

Fashionable  hours 

Domestic  service 

Sanitary  condition  of  London 

Growth  of  medicine  . 

Anatomy        .... 

Inoculation 

Conclusion    .... 


601 
GOl 

602 
60-t 
612 
615 
617 
618 
620 
621 
622 
623 
624 


mSTORT  OF  ENGLIND 


m 


THE    EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY. 


CHAPTER  I. 


The  political  history  of  England  in  the  eighteenth  century  falls 
naturally  into  two  great  divisions.  After  a  brief  period  of  rapid 
fluctuations,  extending  over  the  latter  days  of  William  and 
through  the  reign  of  Anne,  the  balance  of  parties  was  deter- 
mined on  the  accession  of  George  I.  The  Whigs  acquired  an 
ascendancy  so  complete  that  their  adversaries  were  scarcely  able 
even  to  modify  the  course  of  legislation,  and  that  ascendancy  con- 
tinued without  intemoission,  and  almost  without  obstruction,  for 
more  than  forty-five  years.  But  on  the  accession  of  George  III. 
the  long  period  of  Whig  rule  terminated.  After  about  ten  years 
of  weak  governments  and  party  anarchy.  Lord  North  succeeded, 
in  1770,  in  forming  a  Tory  ministry  of  commanding  strength. 
The  dominion  of  the  party  was,  indeed,  broken  in  1782  for  a  few 
months,  in  consequence  of  the  disasters  of  the  American  War  ; 
but  on  the  failure  of  the  Coalition  Ministry  it  was  speedily  re- 
established. It  became  as  absolute  as  the  "^Miig  ascendancy 
had  ever  been.  It  lasted,  without  a  break,  to  the  end  of  the 
century,  and  it  was  only  overthrown  on  the  eve  of  the  Eeform 
Bill  of  1832. 

VOL.  I.  9 


2  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  i. 

There  is  one  theory  on  the  subject  of  these  political  vicissi- 
tudes to  wliich  it  is  necessary  briefly  to  advert,  for  it  has  been 
advocated  by  an  historian  of  great  eminence,  has  been  fre- 
quently repeated,  and  has,  in  some  respects,  considerable  plausi- 
bility. It  has  been  alleged  that  the  policy  of  the  two  great 
parties  has  been  not  merely  modified,  but  reversed,  since  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  that  the  Tories  of  the  time 
of  Queen  Anne  and  of  the  first  two  Georges  were  substan- 
tially the  same  as  the  Whigs  of  the  early  years  of  the  present 
century,  and  the  older  Whigs  as  the  modern  Tories.  The 
Tories,  we  are  reminded,  opposed  Marlborough  and  the  French 
war,  as  the  Whigs  of  the  nineteenth  century  opposed  Wellington 
and  the  Peninsular  war.  The  Tories  in  1711  overcame  the 
opposition  of  the  House  of  Lords  by  the  creation  of  twelve 
peers,  as  the  Whigs  in  1832  overcame  the  same  opposition  by 
the  threat  of  a  still  larger  creation.  The  Tories  advocated, 
and  the  \Miigs  opposed,  free  trade  principles  at  the  peace  of 
Utrecht.  The  Tories  had  at  least  some  Catholic  sympathies, 
while  the  Whigs  were  the  chief  authors  of  the  penal  laws  against 
Catholics.  The  Tories  agitated  in  the  early  Hanoverian  period 
for  short  parliaments  and  for  the  restriction  of  the  corrupt 
influence  of  the  Crown.  The  Whigs  carried  the  Septennial 
Act,  and  were  the  usual  opponents  of  place  bills  and  pension 
bills. 

I  think,  however,  that  a  more  careful  examination  will 
sufficiently  show  that,  in  spite  of  these  appearances,  the  ground 
for  assuming  this  inversion  of  principles  is  very  small.  The 
main  object  of  the  Whig  party  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  to  establish  in  England  a  system  of 
government  in  which  the  will  of  the  people  as  expressed  by 
parliament  should  be  supreme,  and  the  power  of  the  monarch 
should  be  subject  to  the  limitations  it  imposed.  The  substitu- 
tion of  a  parliamentary  title  for  Divine  right  as  the  basis  of  the 
throne,  and  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  the  nation  to  depose  a 
dynasty  which  had  transcended  the  limits  of  the  constitution, 
were  the  great  principles  for  which  the  Whigs  were  contending. 


CH.  I.  WHIGS  AND   TORIES.  8 

They  involved  or  governed  the  whole  system  of  Whig  policy, 
and  they  were  assuredly  in  perfect  accordance  with  its  later 
developments.  The  Tory  party,  on  the  other  hand,  under  Queen 
Anne  was  to  a  great  extent,  and  under  George  I.  was  almost  ex- 
clusively, Jacobite.  The  overwhelming  majority  of  its  members 
held  fervently  the  doctrines  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  and 
of  the  sinfulness  of  all  resistance,  and  they  accordingly  regarded 
the  power  of  Parliament  as  altogether  subordinate  to  that  of 
a  legitimate  king.  The  difference  of  dynasties  was  thus  not 
merely  a  question  of  persons  but  a  question  of  principles.  Each 
dynasty  represented  a  whole  scheme  of  policy  or  theory  of 
government,  the  one  being  essentially  Tory  and  the  other 
essentially  Whig.  The  maintenance  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty 
on  the  throne  was,  therefore,  very  naturally  the  supreme 
aim  of  the  Whig  party.  They  adopted  whatever  means  they 
thought  conducive  to  its  attainment,  and  in  this  simple  fact 
we  have  the  key  to  what  may  appear  the  aberrations  of  their 
policy. 

If  we  enter  more  into  detail  there  can  be  no  question  that 
the  Tory  party  of  the  present  century  has  been  essentially  the 
party  of  the  landed  gentry  and  of  the  Established  Church, 
while  it  has  been  a  main  fimction  of  the  Whigs  to  watch  over  the 
interests  of  the  commercial  classes  and  of  the  Nonconformists. 
But  these  characteristics  are  just  as  true  of  the  days  of  Oxford 
and  Bolingbroke  as  of  those  of  Eldon  and  Castlereagh.  The 
immense  majority  of  the  country  gentry  and  clergy  in  the 
early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  Tories,  and  the  party 
was  called  indifferently  the  '  Church  party,'  or  the  '  country 
party,'  while  the  commercial  classes  and  the  Dissenters  uni- 
formly supported  the  Whigs.  The  law  making  the  possession 
of  a  certain  amount  of  landed  property  an  essential  qualifica- 
tion for  all  members  of  Parliament,  except  a  few  specified 
categories,  was  a  Tory  law,  carried  under  Queen  Anne,  in  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  the  Whigs,  and  it  continued  unaltered  till 
1838,  when  the  land  qualification  was  exchanged  for  a  general 
property  qualification,  which  in  its  turn  was  abolished  by  the 


4  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

Liberals  in  1858.  The  two  ecclesiastical  measures  which  ex- 
cited most  discussion  under  Anne  were  the  Occasional  Con- 
formity Act,  which  was  intended  to  break  the  political  power 
of  the  Dissenters  by  increasing  the  stringency  of  the  Test  Act, 
and  the  Schism  Act,  which  was  intended  to  prevent  them  from 
educating  their  children  in  their  faith.  Both  of  them  were 
Tory  measures ;  both  of  them  became  law  in  a  period  of  Tory 
ascendancy ;  both  of  them  were  repealed  at  the  triumph  of  the 
"Whigs.  A  very  analogous  conflict  raged  in  the  present  century 
around  the  Test  Act  and  around  the  restrictions  that  excluded 
the  Dissenters  from  the  Universities.  Like  their  predecessors 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  modern  Whigs  were  the  steady 
advocates  of  the  Dissenters.  liike  their  predecessors  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  Tories  contended  vehemently  for  re- 
strictions which  they  believed  to  be  useful  to  the  Church.  In 
no  respect  were  the  Tory  Grovernments  in  the  days  of  Pitt  and 
Castlereagh  more  remarkably  distinguished  from  their  Whig 
successors  than  by  their  extreme  jealousy  of  the  Press,  their 
desire  to  limit  its  influence,  and  the  severity  with  which  they 
punished  its  excesses.  But  precisely  the  same  contrast  between 
the  parties  existed  in  the  earlier  phases  of  their  histoiy.  The 
Whig  Grovernment  that  followed  the  Revolution  established  the 
liberty  of  the  Press.  The  first  of  the  series  of  taxes  on  know- 
ledge which  the  modern  Liberals,  after  a  long  struggle  against 
Tory  opposition,  succeeded  in  abolishing  were  the  stamp  upon 
paper  and  the  duty  upon  advertisements,  which  were  imposed 
by  the  Tory  ministry  of  Anne.  The  same  ministry  was  promi- 
nent in  the  eighteenth  century  for  the  frequency  and  bitterness 
of  its  Press  prosecutions,  while  the  long  Whig  ministry  of 
Walpole  was  in  no  respect  more  remarkable  than  for  its  uniform 
tolerance  of  the  most  virulent  criticism. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts  it  is  not,  I  think,  too  much  to  say 
that  the  notion  of  the  two  parties  having  exchanged  their  prin- 
ciples is  altogether  fallacious,  and  the  force  of  the  instances 
that  have  been  alleged  will,  on  examination,  be  much  weak- 
ened, if  not  wholly  dispelled.     The  attitude  of  parties  towards 


en.  r.  WHIGS  AND   TORIES.  5 

European  wars  is  so  slightly  and  remotely  connected  with  their 
political  principles  that  the  fact  of  a  party  having  opposed  a 
war  in  one  century  and  supported  a  war  in  another  can  hardly 
be  regarded  as  a  reasonable  presumption  of  apostacy.  The 
free  trade  policy  which  the  Tories  upheld  in  the  reign  of 
Anne  has  never  been  distinctively  Whig,  and  in  promoting  its 
triumph  the  party  which  counts  Hume  and  Tucker  among  its 
writers,  and  Pitt  and  Huskisson  among  its  statesmen,  deserves 
a  credit  at  least  equal  to  its  opponents.  The  attacks  which  the 
Whigs  directed  in  1713  against  the  free  trade  clauses  of  the 
Tory  commercial  treaty  with  France,  were  scarcely  more  vehe- 
ment than  those  which  Fox  and  Grey  directed  on  the  same 
ground  against  the  commercial  treaty  negotiated  by  Pitt  in 
1786.  It  is  true  that  the  Whigs  in  the  seventeenth,  and  in  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth,  century,  were  more  actively  anti- 
Catholic  in  their  policy  than  the  Tories,  and  that  they  are 
responsible  for  the  most  atrocious  of  the  penal  laws  against 
Catholicism ;  but  the  obvious  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  the  Whigs  were  struggling  for  a  Protestant  suc- 
cession, while  the  legitimate  line  adhered  to  Catholicism. 
Apart  from  this,  the  Tories  had  little  or  no  sympathy  with  the" 
Catholics.  If  the  Dissenters  were  more  strongly  antipapal 
than  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church,  the  commercial 
classes  were  certainly  more  tolerant  than  the  country  gentry. 
The  Tory  Government  under  Anne  did  nothing  for  the  Catholics ; 
it  even  issued  a  proclamation  in  1711  for  putting  the  laws 
against  them  into  force,  and  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the 
only  minister  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  18th  century  who 
showed  any  real  disposition  to  relieve  them  of  their  disabilities 
was  the  Whig  Stanhope.  The  Bill  substituting  septennial  for 
triennial  parliaments  was,  it  is  true,  a  Whig  measure,  and  it  is 
also  true  that  the  Tories  in  the  early  Hanoverian  period  were,  in 
conjunction  with  a  large  body  of  discontented  Whigs,  energetic 
parliamentary  reformers,  advocating  triennial  or  even  annual  pai- 
liaments,  and  inveighing  bitterly  against  pensions  and  places. 
But  in  this  there  is  nothing  perplexing.     The  Whigs  carried  the 


6  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  l 

Septennial  Act  because  they  believed  that  a  dissolution  immedi- 
ately after  the  accession  of  Greorge  I.  and  the  rebellion  of  1715 
would  be  of  the  utmost  danger  to  the  dynasty  which  it  was  their 
great  object  to  defend.  They  maintained  the  Septennial  Act 
mainly  because  they  were  in  power,  and  desired,  like  all  adminis- 
trations, to  avoid  any  unnecessary  shock  that  would  endanger 
their  stability.  Tliat  short  parliaments  are  not  naturally  Tory,  or 
long  parliaments  naturally  Whig,  is  abundantly  shown  by  the 
earlier  history  of  the  Triennial  Bill,  which,  having  been  first 
carried  by  the  revolutionary  Long  Parliament  in  1641,  was 
repealed  in  the  Tory  reaction  of  the  Eestoration,  and  re-enacted 
in  1694,  after  a  struggle  that  lasted  for  several  years,  during 
which  the  Whigs  had  generally  supported  and  the  Tories  had 
usually  opposed  it.  The  A\Tiigs,  when  in  office  under  Walpole, 
maintained  and  multiplied  places  and  pensions  because  they 
were  at  their  disposal,  and  were  powerful  instruments  in  main- 
taining their  majority.  The  Tories  acted  in  the  same  manner 
when  they  regained  power  under  Greorge  III.  If,  at  a  time 
when  they  were  in  almost  hopeless  opposition,  they  took  a 
different  course,  they  were  merely  adopting  the  ordinary  tactics 
of  an  Opposition. 

The  great  triumph  of  Whig  principles  that  was  achieved  at 
the  Eevolution  was  much  less  due  to  any  general  social,  or 
intellectual  development  than  to  the  follies  of  a  single  sovereign, 
and  the  abilities  of  a  small  group  of  statesmen.  For  a  long  time, 
indeed,  the  tendency  of  events  had  been  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. In  the  earlier  periods  of  English  history,  perhaps  the 
most  important  element  of  English  liberty  lay  in  the  great 
multitude  of  independent  yeomen  or  small  landed  proprietors. 
In  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.  Fortescue  had  declared  that  in  no 
other  country  in  Europe  were  they  so  numerous  as  in  England, 
and  he  attributed  to  this  fact  a  very  large  part  of  the  well- 
being  of  the  nation. '  For  many  generations,  however,  this 
class  had  been  steadily  declining.     The  relaxation  of  the  feudal 

'  Fortescue  De  Landibus  Lcgum  Anglics,  cap.  xxix. 


CH.  1.  TENDENCIES  TOWARDS  DESPOTISM.  7 

system  enabled  proprietors  to  alienate  their  land ;  the  increase 
of  wealth  had  the  inevitable  result  of  accumulating  landed 
properties ;  the  great  extension  of  the  woollen  trade,  combined 
with  the  high  rate  of  agricidtural  wages  under  Henry  VII., 
made  it  the  interest  of  landlords  to  turn  arable  land  into  pas- 
ture ;  the  sudden  alteration  in  the  value  of  money  resulting 
from  the  gold  discoveries  in  America,  and  the  violent  changes 
in  the  distribution  of  Avealth  produced  by  the  confiscation  of 
Church  property  aggravated  the  tendency ;  and  in  the  latter 
Tudor  reigns  there  were  bitter  complaints  that  the  small  pro- 
prietors were  being  rapidly  absorbed,  that  tenants  were  being 
everywhere  turned  adrift,  and  that  great  tracts  which  had  once 
been  inhabited  by  a  flourishing  yeomanry  were  being  converted 
into  sheepwalks.  More,  Eoger  Ascham,  Harrison,  Latimer, 
Strafford,  and  Bacon  bear  abundant  testimony  to  the  magnitude 
of  the  evil.  A  long  series  of  attempts  was  made  to  check  it 
by  laws  placing  obstacles  in  the  way  of  new  enclosures,  pro- 
hibiting the  pulling  down  of  farm-houses  to  which  twenty  acres 
of  arable  land  were  attached,  restraining  the  number  of  sheep  in 
a  flock,  and  even  regulating  the  number  of  acres  under  tillage  ; 
but  this  legislation,  which  had  been  warntiy  eulogised,  and  in 
part  originated,  by  Bacon,  was  probably  imperfectly  executed 
and  was  certainly  insufficient  to  arrest  the  tendency.  The 
yeomanry  formed  the  chief  political  counterpoise  to  the  country 
gentry.  In  the  Civil  War  they  were  conspicuous  on  the  side  of 
the  Parliament,  and  even  after  the  Eestoration  it  was  estimated 
that  there  were  more  than  160,000  small  landed  proprietors  in 
England.  Every  year,  however,  their  number  diminished.^  If 
they  continued  in  the  country  districts,  they  sank  into  peasants, 
"or  rose  into  country  gentry,  and  in  the  first  case  they  lost  all 
political  power  while  in  the  second  case  they  usually  passed 
into  the  Tory  ranks.     The  towns,  and  the  commercial  classes 

'  See  Eden's  Hist,  of  the  World ng  Peasantry  in   Mr.   Thornton's    Over- 

Clnsses,  vol.   i.   73,   115;   Macaulay's  popnlation.   Bacon  has  dwelt  strongly 

Hist.  chap.  iii. ;  Fischel   0)i  the  Con-  on  the  evil  in  his  History  of  Henry 

ttitution,  315-316,  and  the  admirable  VII.,  and  in  his  essay  On  the  True 

■  chap,  on  the  History  of  the  English  Greatness  of  Kingdoms. 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH.    I. 


who  inhabited  them,  had,  no  doubt,  rapidly  increased  under 
the  Stuarts,  but  they  had  hardly  made  a  corresponding  advance 
in  poHtical  importance.  The  guilds  which  gave  the  commer- 
cial classes  a  large  amount  of  political  concentration,  had  dis- 
appeared. The  modern  inventions  that  have  given  manufac- 
turing industry  an  unparalleled  extension  had  not  yet  arisen, 
and  by  a  recent  and  skilful  innovation  the  political  power  of 
the  commercial  classes  had  been  fatally  impaired.  Under 
Charles  II.  the  corporations  most  hostile  to  the  Crown  had  been 
accused  of  petty  irregularities  and  misdemeanours.  Sentences  of 
forfeiture  had  been  pronounced  against  them  ;  new  charters  were 
granted,  framed  in  such  a  manner  that  the  members  were 
necessarily  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Crown,  and  by  this 
process  almost  the  whole  borough  representation  throughout 
England  had  been  reduced  to  a  condition  of  complete  subser- 
viency. The  judicial  bench  has  more  than  once  proved  the 
most  formidable  bulwark  against  the  encroachments  of  de- 
spotism, but  in  England  the  judges  were  removable  at  plea- 
sure, and  had  become  the  mere  creatures  of  the  Crown.  In  no 
age,  and  in  no  country  have  State  trials  been  conducted  with  a 
more  flagrant  disregard  for  justice  and  for  decency,  and  with  a 
more  scandalous  subserviency  to  the  Crown,  than  in  England 
imder  Charles  II.,  and  eleven  out  of  the  twelve  judges  gave  their 
sanction  to  the  claim  of  his  successor  to  dispense  with  the 
laws. 

Nor  was  the  balance  of  intellectual  influences  more  favourable 
to  freedom.  There  existed,  it  is  true,  a  small  body  of  able  men 
who  adopted  the  principles  of  Sidney  or  of  Locke,  and  who  often 
carried  them  almost  or  altogether  to  the  verge  of  republicanism ; 
but  the  universities,  which  were  the  very  centres  of  intellectual 
life,  were  thoroughly  Tory.  Hobbes,  who  was  the  most  influen- 
tial freethinker  of  the  Eestoration,  advocated  a  system  of  the 
most  crushing  despotism,  and  the  ecclesiastical  influences  which 
exercised  an  overwhelming  influence  over  the  great  mass  of  the 
English  people  were  eminently  inimical  to  freedom.  In  the 
old  Catholic  times  an  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  had  combined 


CH.  1.  TENDENCIES  TOWARDS  DESPOTISM.  9 

with  the  barons  at  Eunnymede,  and,  in  opposition  to  the  Pope 
and  to  his  legate  had  wrested  the  great  charter  of  English 
liberty  from  the  Sovereign,  but  the  Church  which  succeeded  to 
the  sceptre  of  Catholicism  was  essentially  Erastian,  and  the 
instincts  of  its  clergy  were  almost  imiformly  despotic.  The  free 
spirit  generated  in  the  Reformation  had  taken  refuge  in  Puri- 
tanism, but  in  the  reaction  that  accompanied  and  followed 
the  Eestoration,  Puritanism  seemed  hopelessly  discredited  and 
crushed.  The  hostility  which  the  country  gentry  and  the  esta- 
blished clergy  had  always  felt  towards  it  was  intensified  by 
the  many  battles  which  the  first  had  fought,  and  by  the  many 
humiliations  which  the  latter  had  undergone,  while  the  popu- 
lace hated  it  for  its  austerity,  and  the  deepest  feelings  of  the 
English  nation  were  stung  to  madness  at  the  memory  of  their 
slaughtered  king.  The  doctrine  of  non-resistance  in  its  extreme 
form  was  taught  in  the  Homilies  of  the  Church,  embodied  in 
the  oath  of  allegiance,^  in  the  corporation  oath  of  Charles  11.^ 
and  in  the  declaration  prescribed  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,^ 
enrolled  by  great  Anglican  casuists  among  the  leading  tenets  of 
Christianity,  and  persistently  enforced  from  the  pulpit.  It  had 
become,  as  a  later  bishop  truly  said, '  the  distinguishing  character 
of  the  Church  of  England.'  *  At  a  time  when  the  constitution 
was  still  unformed,  when  every  institution  of  freedom  and  every 
bulwark  against  despotism  was  continually  assailed,  the  autho- 
rised religious  teachers  of  the  nation  were  incessantly  inculcating 
this  doctrine,  and  it  may  probably  be  said  without  exaggeration 
that  it  occupied  a  more  prominent  position  in  the  preaching  and 
the  literatiure  of  the  Anglican  Church  than  any  other  tenet  in  the 
whole  compass  of  theology.  Even  Burnet  and  Tillotson,  who 
were  men  of  unquestionable  honesty,  and  who  subsequently  took 
a  conspicuous  part  on  the  side  of  the  Revolution,  when  attend- 
ing Russell  in  his  last  hours,  had  impressed  upon  him  in  the 

*  '  I,  A  B,  do  declare  and  believe  '  li  Car.  ii.  stat.  ii.  c.  1. 

that  it  is  not  lawful  vj)o/i  any  pretence  *  See  the  dying  profession  of  Lake, 

n-hatever  to  take  up  arms  against  the  Bishop    of     Chichester,     Lathbury's 

king.'  Hist,  of  the  Xon-jurors,  p.  50. 

«  13  Car.  ii.  c.  2. 


10  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

strongest  manner  the  duty  of  accepting  the  doctrine  of 
the  absolute  unlawfulness  of  resistance,  and  had  clearly  inti- 
mated that  if  he  did  not  do  so  they  could  feel  no  confidence 
in  his  salvation.'  The  clergy  who  attended  Monmouth  at 
his  execution  told  him  he  could  not  belong  to  the  Church 
of  England  unless  he  acknowledged  it.^  The  University 
of  Cambridge  in  1679,  and  the  University  of  Oxford 
on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  Russell,  authoritatively 
proclaimed  it,  and  the  latter  university  consigned  the  leading 
Whig  writings  in  defence  of  freedom  to  the  flames,  and  pro- 
hibited all  students  from  reading  them.^  The  immense 
popularity  which  the  miracle  of  the  royal  touch  had  acquired, 
indicated  only  too  faithfully  the  blind  and  passionate  loyalty 
of  the  time ;  nor  was  there  any  other  period  in  English  history 
in  which  the  spirit  of  independence  and  the  bias  in  favour  of 
freedom  which  had  long  characterised  the  English  people  were 
so  little  shown  as  in  the  years  that  followed  the  Restoration. 

It  was  impossible  that  this  could  last.  The  enthusiasm  of 
loyalty  was  strung  to  so  high  a  pitch  that  reaction  was 
inevitable,  but  had  it  not  been  for  a  very  rare  combination  of 
causes  it  would  never  have  been  carried  to  the  point  of  revolu- 
tion. The  immorality  of  the  court  of  Charles  which  shocked 
the  sober  feelings  of  the  middle-class,  the  contemptible  cha- 
racter of  the  King,  the  humiliation  which  French  patronage 
and  Dutch  victories  imposed  upon  the  nation,  the  growth  of 
religious  scepticism,  which  at  last  weakened  the  influence  of 
the  clergy,  the  atrocious  persecution  of  Nonconformists,  and  the 
infamy  of  the  State  trials,  had  all  considerable  eff"ect,  but  they 
operated  chiefly  upon  a  small  body  of  enlightened  men.  The 
popularity  of  the  Revolution,  so  far  as  it  existed,  arose  from 
the  conflict  between  the  three  great  passions  of  the  English 
mind.  These  were  attachment  to  the  throne,  attachment  to 
the  Church,  and  dread  of  Catholicism.  The '  No  Popery '  feeling 

»  Birch's  lAfe  of  Tillotson  (2nd  ed.)  ^  See  on  these  decrees  Cooke's  Hist. 

109-122.  of  PaHies,  i.  105,  3i5-355.     Somers' 

"^  See  Fox's  James  11.  p.  265.  Tracts,  viii.  420-424  ;  ix.  367. 


CH.  I.  CAUSES   OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  1 1 

under  Charles  II,  had  burst  out  fiercely  in  tlie  panic  about  the 
Popish  plot  and  in  the  atrocities  that  followed  it  ;  but  when 
the  Whigs  endeavoured  to  avail  themselves  of  it  to  pass  the 
Exclusion  Bill  their  efforts  recoiled  upon  themselves,  and  it 
became  evident  that  even  this  passion  was  less  powerful  than 
attachment  to  the  legitimate  order  of  succession.  Yet  it  was  to 
this  feeling  that  the  triumph  of  the  Revolution  was  mainly  due. 
Had  the  old  dynasty  adhered  to  the  national  faith  its  position 
would  have  been  impregnable,  and  in  the  existing  disposition  of 
men's  minds  it  was  neither  impossible  nor  improbable  that  the 
free  institutions  of  England  would  have  shared  the  fate  of  those 
of  Spain,  of  Italy,  and  of  France.  Most  happily  for  the  country, 
a  bigoted  Catholic,  singularly  destitute  both  of  the  tact  and 
sagacity  of  a  statesman,  and  of  the  qualities  that  win  the 
affection  of  a  people,  mounted  the  throne,  devoted  all  the 
energies  of  his  nature  and  all  the  resources  of  his  position  to 
extending  the  religion  most  hateful  to  his  people,  attacked 
with  a  strange  fatuity  the  very  Church  on  whose  teaching  tlie 
monarchical  enthusiasm  mainly  rested,  and  thus  drove  the  most 
loyal  of  his  subjects  into  violent  opposition.  Without  the 
assistance  of  the  Church  and  Tory  party  the  Revolution  would 
have  been  impossible,  and  it  is  certain  that  the  Church  would 
never  have  led  the  opposition  to  the  dispensing  power  liad  not 
that  power  been  exerted  to  remove  the  disabilities  of  the 
Catholics  and  Dissenters.  The  overtures  of  the  King  to  the 
Nonconformists,  whom  the  Church  regarded  as  her  bitterest 
enemies,  his  manifest  intention  to  displace  Protestants  by 
Catholics  in  the  leading  posts  of  the  Grovernment,  the  violation 
of  the  constitution  of  an  Oxford  college  which  assailed  the  clergy 
in  the  very  citadel  of  their  power,  and  finally,  the  prosecution 
of  the  seven  bishops,  at  last  forced  the  advocates  of  passive 
obedience  into  reluctant  opposition  to  their  sovereign.  Yet 
even  then  attachment  to  the  legitimate  line  might  have  pre- 
vailed but  for  the  belief  that  was  industriously  spread  that  the 
Prince  of  Wales  was  a  supposititious  child,  and  every  stage  in 
the  intricate  drama  that  ensued  was  governed   more  by  the 


12  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

action  of  individuals  and  by  accidental  circumstances  than 
by  general  causes.  The  defection  of  Marlborough,  and  of 
almost  every  leading  politician  on  whom  the  King  relied, 
brought  William  without  opposition  to  London,  but  this  was 
only  the  first  step  of  the  change.  The  Whigs  were  them- 
selves by  no  means  unanimous  in  desiring  his  accession  to 
the  throne,  and  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  Enoiish  people  had  no  wish  to  break  the  natural  order  of 
succession.  The  doctrine  of  the  indefeasible  right  of  the 
leo-itimate  sovereign,  and  of  the  absolute  sinfulness  of  resist- 
ance, was  in  the  eyes  of  the  great  majority  of  Englishmen  the 
cardinal  principle  of  political  morality,  aud  a  blind,  unqualified, 
unquestioning  loyalty  was  the  strongest  and  most  natural  form 
of  political  enthusiasm.  This  was  the  real  danger  to  English 
liberty.  Until  this  tone  of  thought  and  feeling  was  seriously 
modified,  free  institutions  never  could  take  root,  and  even  after 
the  intervention  of  William  it  was  quite  possible,  and  in  the  eyes 
of  most  Englishmen  eminently  desirable,  that  a  Government 
should  have  been  established  so  nearly  legitimate  as  to  receive 
the  support  of  this  enthusiasm — the  consecration  of  this  belief. 
The  most  obvious  method  of  achieving  this  end  would 
have  been  to  have  retained  James  on  the  thi'one,  imposing 
on  him  new  parliamentary  restrictions ;  but  his  flight  to 
France  rendered  this  impracticable,  removed  the  greatest 
difficulty  from  the  path  of  the  "VMiigs,  and  made  it  possible 
for  them  to  construct  the  ingenious  fiction  of  abdication, 
which  was  of  much  use  in  quieting  the  consciences  of  the 
Tories.  Assuming  that  James  had  abdicated,  the  infant 
prince  was  the  natural  heir,  and  he  might  have  been  called  to 
the  throne  under  a  Protestant  regency.  But  this,  too,  was  made 
impossible  by  circumstances.  The  child  had  been  carried  to 
France,  and  the  popular  belief  that  he  was  supposititious  damped 
the  enthusiasm  of  his  supporters.  Assuming  that  James  had 
abdicated,  and  that  his  alleged  son  was  supposititious,  the  coro- 
nation of  Mary  as  sole  sovereign  would  have  established  a 
legitimate  monarchy.     The  wishes  of  the  queen  and  the  resolu- 


CH.  I.  RESULTS   OF   THE  REVOLUTION.  1  3 

tion  of  William,  who  threatened  at  once  to  retire  to  Holland 
and  leave  the  country  to  anarchy,  prevented  this  solution  and 
made  it  absolutely  necessary  to  call  to  the  throne  a  sovereign 
whose  title  was  manifestly  a  parliamentary  one.  Had  any  one 
of  the  other  three  courses  been  pursued,  a  shock  would,  no 
doubt,  have  been  given  to  the  Tory  theory  of  government ;  but 
the  old  current  of  political  thought  would  soon  have  resumed 
its  course.  The  sovereignty  would  have  still  been  regarded  as 
of  Divine  right.  The  political  enthusiasm  of  the  great  majority 
of  the  nation  would  have  centred  upon  it,  and  the  belief 
that  it  possessed  a  sanctity  generically  different  from,  and  im- 
measurably transcending  that  of  any  other  institution  in  the 
country  would  have  given  it  a  fatal  power  in  every  conflict  with 
the  parliament.  By  a  very  rare  concurrence  of  circumstances, 
by  the  extraordinary  folly  of  the  legitimate  sovereign,  by  the 
ambition  and  consummate  statesmanship  of  William  and  of  a 
small  group  of  Whig  statesmen,  a  form  of  government  was 
established  and  maintained  in  England  for  which  the  mass  of 
the  people  were  intellectually  wholly  unprepared.  The  French 
war  soon  roused  the  national  feeling,  while  James,  with  great 
folly,  identified  himself  ostentatiously  with  the  enemies  of  his 
country ;  and  the  indignation  produced  by  the  plots  against  the 
life  of  William,  and  at  a  later  period  by  the  recognition  of  the 
Pretender  by  Lewis  XIV.,  conspired  powerfully  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  new  Government.  The  Whig  leaders  employed 
in  the  interests  of  toleration  and  liberty  an  opportunity  which 
was  the  result  of  violent  currents  of  public  feeling  of  a  very 
different  kind.  A  considerable  portion  of  the  Tories  were 
gradually  won  over,  and  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  Act 
of  Settlement  was  passed  by  a  Tory  majority.  Eeligious  liberty 
was  extended  probably  quite  as  far  as  the  existing  condition  of 
opinion  would  allow.  The  ancient  limits  of  the  constitution 
which  had  been  grievously  infringed  in  the  last  two  reigns,  were 
reasserted  by  the  Declaration  of  Eights,  and  new  guarantees  of 
national  freedom  were  enacted,  so  efficient,  and  at  the  same  time 
so  moderate,  that  very  few  of  them  were  subsequently  annulled. 


14  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ca.  i. 

The  law  limiting  the  duration  of  Parliament  to  three  years  was, 
indeed,  as  we  have  seen,  replaced  by  the  Septennial  Act,  and 
three  of  the  clauses  of  the  Act  of  Settlement  were  in  a  few 
years  repealed.  That  excluding  all  servants  of  the  Crown  from 
the  House  of  Commons  would  have  destroyed  the  harmony 
between  the  executive  and  legislative  bodies,  which  is  one  of 
the  chief  advantages  of  parliamentary  government,  and  by 
withdrawing  the  ministers  from  the  Lower  House,  would  have 
fatally  weakened  its  influence.  That  compelling  every  member 
of  the  privy  council  to  sign  his  opinions  was  thought  an  exces- 
sive restriction  on  the  liberty  of  statesmen.  That  forbidding 
the  sovereign  to  leave  the  British  isles  without  the  consent  of 
Parliament  was  revoked  at  the  desire  of  Greorge  I.  But  these 
were  comparatively  small  matteis.  The  great  legislative  changes 
that  were  effected  at  the  Eevolution — the  immobility  of  the 
judges,  the  reform  of  the  trials  for  treason,  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  the  more  efficient  control  of  the  income  of  the  sovereign, 
the  excision  from  the  oath  of  allegiance  of  the  clause  which, 
in  direct  contradiction  to  the  great  charter,  asserted  that  under 
no  pretence  whatever  might  subjects  take  up  arms  against  their 
king;  the  establishment  of  Presbyterianism  in  Scotland,  and 
the  partial  toleration  of  Dissenters  in  England,  have  all  been 
justified  by  history  as  measures  of  real  and  unquestionable 
progress. 

The  English  Eevolution  belongs  to  a  class  of  successful 
measures  of  which  there  are  very  few  examples  in  history.  In 
most  cases  where  a  permanent  change  has  been  effected  in  the 
government  and  in  the  modes  of  political  thinking  of  a  country, 
this  has  been  mainly  because  the  nation  has  become  ripe  for  it 
through  the  action  of  general  causes.  A  doctrine  which  had 
long  been  fervently  held,  and  which  was  interwoven  with  the 
social  fabric,  is  sapped  by  intellectual  scepticism,  loses  its  hold 
on  the  affections  of  the  people,  and  becomes  unrealised,  obso- 
lete, and  incredible.  An  institution  which  was  once  useful  and 
honoured  has  become  unsuited  to  the  altered  conditions  of 
society.     The  functions  it  once    discharged    are    no   longer 


CH.  I.  IMPORTANCE   OF  ACCIDENTS  IN  HISTORY.  15 

needed,  or  are  discharged  more  efficiently  in  other  ways,  and 
as  modes  of  thought  and  life  grow  up  that  are  not  in  harmony 
with  it,  the  reverence  that  consecrates  it  slowly  ebbs  away. 
Social  and  economical  causes  change  the  relative  importance 
of  classes  and  professions  till  the  old  political  arrangements  no 
longer  reflect  with  any  fidelity  the  real  disposition  of  power. 
Causes  of  this  kind  undermine  institutions  and  prepare  great 
changes,  and  it  is  only  when  they  have  fully  done  their  work 
that  the  men  arise  who  strike  the  final  blow,  and  whose  names 
are  associated  with  the  catastrophe.  Whoever  will  study  the 
history  of  the  downfall  of  the  Eoman  Republic;  of  the  triumph 
of  Christianity  in  the  Roman  Empire  ;  of  the  dissolution  of  that 
empire ;  of  the  mediaeval  transition  from  slavery  to  serfdom ;  of 
the  Reformation,  or  of  the  French  Revolution,  may  easily  con- 
vince himself  that  each  of  these  great  changes  was  the  result  of 
a  long  series  of  religious,  social,  political,  economical,  and 
intellectual  causes,  extending  over  many  generations.  So 
eminently  is  this  the  case,  that  some  distinguished  writers  have 
maintained  that  the  action  of  special  circumstances  and  of 
individual  genius,  efibrts,  and  peculiarities,  counts  for  nothing 
in  the  great  march  of  human  afifairs,  and  that  every  successful 
revolution  must  be  attributed  solely  to  the  long  train  of  intel- 
lectual influences  that  prepared  and  necessitated  its  triumph. 

It  is  not  difficult,  however,  to  show  that  this,  like  most 
very  absolute  historical  generalisations,  is  an  exaggeration,  and 
several  instances  might  be  cited  in  which  a  slight  change 
in  the  disposition  of  circumstances,  or  in  the  action  of  indi- 
viduals, would  have  altered  the  whole  course  of  history.  There 
are,  indeed,  few  streams  of  tendency,  however  powerful,  that 
might  not,  at  some  early  period  of  their  career,  have  been 
arrested  or  deflected.  Thus  the  whole  religious  and  moral 
sentiment  of  the  most  advanced  nations  of  the  world  has  been 
mainly  determined  by  the  influence  of  that  small  nation  which 
inhabited  Palestine  ;  but  there  have  been  periods  when  it  was 
more  than  probable  that  the  Jewish  race  woidd  have  been  as 
completely  absorbed  or  extirpated  as  were  the  ten  tribes,  and 


16  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  en.  i. 

every  trace  of  the  Jewiali  writings  blotted  from  the  world.  Not 
less  distinctive,  not  less  unique  in  its  kind,  has  been  the  place 
which  the  Grf^ek,  and  especially  the  Athenian,  inteUect  has 
occupied  in  history.  It  has  been  the  great  dynamic  agency  in 
European  civiHsation.  Directly  or  indirectly  it  has  contributed 
more  than  any  other  single  influence,  to  stimulate  its  energies,  to 
shape  its  intellectual  type,  to  determine  its  political  ideals  and 
canons  of  taste,  to  impart  to  it  the  qualities  that  distinguish  it 
most  widely  from  the  Eastern  world.  But  how  much  of  this 
influence  would  have  arisen  or  have  survived  if,  as  might  easily 
have  happened,  the  invasion  of  Xerxes  had  succeeded,  and  an 
Asiatic  despotism  been  planted  in  Grreece  ?  It  is  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  strategy  whether  Hannibal,  after  Cannse,  might  not 
have  marched  upon  Eome  and  burnt  it  to  the  gi-ound,  and 
had  he  done  so,  the  long  tram  of  momentous  consequences 
that  flowed  from  the  Eoman  Empire  would  never  have  taken 
place,  and  a  nation  widely  different  in  its  position,  its  charac- 
ter, and  its  pursuits,  would  have  presided  over  the  develop- 
ments of  civilisation.  It  is,  no  doubt,  true  that  the  degrada- 
tion or  disintegration  of  Oriental  Christianity  assisted  the 
triumph  of  Mohammedanism;  but  if  Mahomet  had  been 
killed  in  one  of  the  first  skinnishes  of  his  career,  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  a  great  monotheistic  and  military 
religion  would  have  been  organised  in  Arabia,  destined  to  sweep 
with  resistless  fanaticism  over  an  immense  part  both  of  the 
Pagan  and  of  the  Christian  world,  and  to  establish  itself  for 
many  centuries  and  in  three  continents  as  a  serious  rival  to 
Christianity.  As  Gibbon  truly  says,  had  Charles  Martel  been 
defeated  at  the  battle  of  Poitiers,  Mohammedanism  would  have 
almost  certainly  overspread  the  whole  of  GalKc  and  Teutonic 
Europe,  and  the  victory  of  the  Christians  was  only  gained  after 
several  days  of  doubtful  and  indecisive  struggle.  The  obscure 
blunder  of  some  forgotten  captain,  who  perhaps  moved  his 
troops  to  the  right  when  he  should  have  moved  them  to  the  left, 
may  have  turned  the  scale,  and  determined  the  future  of 
Europe.     Even  the  changes  of  the  French  Eevolution,  prepared 


CH.  I.  I5IP0RTAXCE   OF   ACCIDENTS   IN   HISTORV.  17 

as  they  undoubtedly  were  by  a  long  train  of  in-esistible  causes, 
might  have  worn  a  wholly  different  complexion  had  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy  succeeded  Lewis  XIV.  and  directed,  with  the  in- 
telligence, and  the  liberality  that  were  generally  expected  from 
the  pupil  of  Fenelon,  the  government  of  his  country.  Profound 
and  searching  changes  in  the  institutions  of  France  were  in- 
evitable, but  had  they  been  effected  peacefully,  legally,  and 
gradually,  had  the  shameless  scenes  of  the  Eegency  and  of 
Lewis  XV.  been  avoided,  that  frenzy  of  democratic  enthusiasm 
which  has  been  the  most  distinctive  product  of  the  Revolution, 
and  which  has  passed,  almost  like  a  new  religion,  into  European 
life,  might  never  have  arisen,  and  the  whole  Napoleonic 
episode,  with  its  innumerable  consequences,  would  never  have 
occurred. 

The  English  Revolution  is  an  example,  though  a  less 
eminent  one,  of  the  same  kind.  It  was  a  movement  essentially 
aristocratic.  The  whole  course  of  its  policy  was  shaped  by  a 
few  men  who  were  far  in  advance  of  the  general  sentiments  of 
the  nation.  The  King,  in  spite  of  his  great  abilities,  was 
profoundly  unpopular,  and  his  cold  and  unsympathetic  manners, 
and  his  manifest  dislike  to  the  island  over  which  he  reigned, 
checked  all  real  enthusiasm  even  among  the  Whigs.  The 
Church  was  sullen  and  discontented,  exasperated  by  the  Act  of 
Toleration,  which  the  clergy  were  anxious  to  repeal,  implacably 
hostile  to  the  scheme  of  comprehension,  by  which  William 
wished  to  unite  the  Protestant  bodies,  and  to  the  purely 
secular  theory  of  government  which  triumphed  at  the  Revolu- 
tion. In  the  existing  state  of  public  opinion  it  was  impossible 
that  any  system  which  the  Church  disliked  could  be  really 
popular,  and  many  causes,  both  just  and  unjust,  contributed  to 
the  discontent.  The  moral  feelings  of  the  community  were 
scandalised  by  the  spectacle  of  a  child  making  war  upon  her 
father,  by  the  base  treachery  of  many  whom  the  dethroned 
sovereign  had  loaded  with  benefits,  by  the  tergiversation  of 
multitudes,  who,  in  taking  the  oaths  to  a  revolutionary 
Government,  were  belying  the  principles  which  for  years  they 
VOL.  I.  3 


18  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

had  most  strenuously  maintained.  There  was  an  uneasy  con- 
sciousness that  the  Eevolution,  though  singularly  unstained  by 
bloodshed  and  by  excess,  was  far  from  glorious  to  the  English 
people.  It  was  effected  by  a  foreign  prince  with  a  foreign 
army.  It  was  rendered  possible,  or,  at  least,  bloodless,  by  an 
amount  of  aggravated  treachery,  duplicity,  and  ingratitude 
seldom  surpassed  in  history.  Besides  this,  national  prosperity 
had  rapidly  declined.  A  great  and  by  no  means  successful 
war  was  entailed  upon  the  nation,  and  thousands  of  Englishmen 
had  been  mown  down  by  the  sword  or  by  disease  in  Flanders 
and  in  Ireland.  The  lavish  sums  bestowed  on  Dutch  favourites, 
the  immense  subsidies  voted  to  the  confederates  in  the  war, 
the  rapid  increase  of  taxation,  the  creation  of  a  national  debt, 
and  of  great  standing  armies,  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act,  the  defeat  of  Steinkirk,  when  five  regiments  of 
Englishmen  were  cut  to  pieces  by  a  superior  force  while 
whole  battalions  of  allied  forces  remained  passive  spectators  of 
the  scene,  the  desolation  of  Ireland,  the  massacre  of  Glencoe, 
the  abandonment  of  the  Darien  colonists,  the  'rabbling' 
of  about  300  Episcopalian  clergymen  in  Scotland,  the  Par- 
tition Treaty,  signed  by  William  without  consultation  with 
any  English  minister  except  Somers,  all  added  to  the  flame. 
The  discontent  was  unreasonably,  but  not  unnaturally,  aggra- 
vated by  a  long  series  of  bad  harvests.  From  1690  to  1699 
there  was  hardly  a  single  year  of  average  prosperity.  The 
loaf  which  in  the  last  reign  had  cost  threepence  rose  to 
ninepence.  Great  multitudes  who  had  been  employed  in 
the  woollen  manufactories,  or  in  the  mines,  were  turned  adrift. 
In  the  eight  years  from  1688  to  1696  it  was  stated  in  official 
documents  that  the  value  of  the  merchandise  exported  from 
England  sank  from  4,086,087^.  to  2,729,520^,  and  the  Post 
Office  revenue  from  76,318^.  to  58,672^.  Every  shopkeeper  and 
innkeeper  bore  witness  to  the  increasing  poverty.  In  every 
part  of  the  kingdom  there  were  accounts  of  rents  being  unpaid, 
of  tenants  breaking,  of  impoverished  landlords  ;  and  alarming 
bread   riots    broke    out   at   Worcester,  Gloucester,    Hereford, 


CH.  I.       UNPOPULARITY  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.         19 

Stafford,     Northampton,     Sudbury,     Colchester,     and     other 
places.' 

The  most  formidable  element  in  this  discontent  was  that 
hatred  of  foreigners  which  was  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  English 
mind,  and  which  has  played  a  part  that  can  hardly  be 
exaggerated  in  English  history.  Hatred  of  foreign  interfer- 
ence lay  at  the  root  of  that  old  antipathy  to  Eome  which 
alone  rendered  possible  the  English  Reformation.  Hatred 
of  the  Irish  and  hatred  of  the  French  were  leading  elements 
in  the  popular  feeling  against  James  II.,  while  the  adherents 
of  the  Stuarts  continually  appealed  to  the  hatred  of  the 
Dutch,  of  the  Germans,  and  of  the  French  refugees.  The 
very  name  of  each  of  the  great  parties  in  the  State  bears 
witness  to  the  feeling,  for  it  was  at  first  only  an  offensive  nick- 
name, deriving  its  point  and  its  popularity  from  a  national 
antipathy.  The  'Tory'  was  originally  an  Irish  robber,  and 
the  term  was  applied  by  Gates  to  the  disbelievers  in  the 
Popish  plot,  was  afterwards  extended  to  the  Irish  Catholic 
friends  of  the  Duke  of  York  at  the  time  of  the  Exclusion  Bill, 
and  soon  became  the  designation  of  the  whole  body  of  his  sup- 
porters. The  term '  Whig '  was  a  nickname  applied  to  the  Scotch 
Presbyterians.  It  began  at  the  time  when  the  Cameronians  took 
up  arms  for  their  religion,  and  was  derived  from  the  whey,  or 
refuse  milk,  which  their  poverty  obliged  them  to  use,  or,  accord- 
ing to  another  version,  from  *  Whiggam,'  a  word  employed 
by  Scotch  cattle-drovers  of  the  west  in  driving  their  horses.^ 
In  many  cases  these  national  jealousies  might  be  justified  by  a 
real  national  danger,  but  there  lay  behind  them  a  vast  mass  of 
unreasoning  prejudice  which  the  insular  position  of  England 
made  exceptionally  strong,  and  which  was  one  of  the  most 
powerful  forces  in  English  politics. 

In  the  latter  Stuart  reigns  this  sentiment  was  strongly  on 
the  side  of  the  Whigs.     The   sale  of  Dunkirk  to  France,  the 

'  Somers'  Tracts,  ix.  457,  x.  356-  Craik's  Hist,  cf  Commerce,  p.  117. 
358,  Short's  Hist,  of  the  Increase  and  ■^  North's  JElraTweH, p.  321.    Burnet's 

Decrease    of  Manidnd,    in    England  Hist,  of  his  own  time  {folio  ed.),  i.  i3. 
(1767)   p.    87.      Chalmers'    JSstimafc. 


20  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  t. 

shameful  day  when  the  Dutch  fleet  sailed  unmolested  into  the 
Thames,  burnt  the  shipping  at  Chatham,  and  menaced  the 
security  of  the  capital,  and,  still  more,  the  growing  subordina- 
tion of  England  to  the  policy  of  Lewis  XIV.,  had  irritated  to 
the  very  higliest  degree  the  national  sentiment.  England, 
which  had  shattered  the  power  of  France  at  Agincourt,  Crecy, 
and  Poitiers,  which  under  Elizabeth  and  Cromwell  had  been 
feared  or  honoured  in  every  quarter  of  the  Continent,  had 
now  sunk  into  complete  disrepute,  and  followed  humbly  in  the 
wake  of  her  ancient  rival.  Year  by  year  the  power  and  the 
ambition  of  Lewis  increased,  and  threatened  to  overshadow  all 
the  liberties  of  Europe,  but  no  danger  could  rouse  the  English 
sovereign  from  his  ignoble  torpor,  and  both  he  and  his  ministers 
were  suspected  with  only  too  good  reason  of  being  the  paid 
vassals  of  the  French  King. 

It  may  easily  be  understood  how  galling  such  a  sub- 
serviency to  foreigners  must  have  been  to  large  classes  who 
were  very  indifferent  to  questions  of  constitutions  and 
parliaments,  and  the  indignation  was  greatly  increased  by  the 
close  connection'  between  the  foreign  policy  of  England  and 
the  interests  of  Protestantism  in  Europe.  In  England  Pro- 
testantism was  the  religion  of  so  large  and  so  energetic  a  majority 
of  the  people  that  any  attempt  to  overthrow  it  was  hopeless, 
but  on  the  Continent  its  prospects  at  the  time  of  the  Kevolu- 
tion  were  extremely  gloomy.  For  several  generations  over  a 
great  part  of  Europe  the  conflict  had  been  steadily  against  it, 
and  there  was  much  reason  to  believe  that  it  might  sink  into 
complete  political  impotence.  Partly  by  the  natural  reaction 
that  follows  a  great  movement  of  enthusiasm,  partly  by  the 
superior  attraction  of  a  pictorial  form  of  worship,  partly 
through  the  skilful  organisation  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and 
still  more  by  a  systematic  policy  of  repression.  Protestantism 
had  almost  disappeared  in  many  countries,  in  which,  some  fifty 
years  after  the  Reformation,  it  appeared  to  have  taken  the  firmest 
root.  Bohemia  had  once  been  mainly  Protestant.  In  Hungary, 
Transylvania,  Poland,  Austria  proper,  and  even  Bavaria,  Pro- 


CE.  I.  THE  PROTESTANT  CAUSE.  21 

testants  had  formed  either  a  majority,  or  nearly  half  of  the  popu- 
lation. In  France  they  had  occupied  great  towns,  and  organised 
powerful  armies.  They  might  once  have  been  found  in  numbers 
in  the  northern  provinces  of  Italy,  in  Flanders,  in  Cologne, 
Bamberg,  Wurzburg,  and  Ems.  In  all  these  quarters  the 
ascendancy  of  Catholicism  was  now  almost  undivided,  and 
the  balance  of  political  power  was  immensely  in  its  favour. 
Spain,  though  in  a  state  of  decadence,  was  still  the  greatest 
colonial  power  in  the  world.  The  Emperor  and  the  King  of 
France  were  by  far  the  greatest  military  powers  on  the 
Continent,  and  the  Emperor  was  persecuting  Protestants  in 
Hungary,  while  Lewis  XIV.  made  it  a  main  object  of  his  home 
policy  to  drive  them  from  France,  and  a  main  object  of  his 
foreign  policy  to  crush  Holland,  which  was  then  the  most 
powerful  bulwark  of  Protestantism  on  the  Continent.  Of  the 
Protestant  States  Sweden  was  too  poor  and  too  remote  to 
exercise  much  permanent  influence,  and  she  had  for  many  years 
been  little  more  than  a  satellite  of  France  ;  Holland  had  been 
raised  under  a  succession  of  able  leaders  to  an  importance  much 
beyond  her  natural  resources,  but  her  very  existence  as  an  inde- 
pendent power  was  menaced  by  her  too  powerful  neighbom- ; 
England  had  sunk  since  the  Eestoration  into  complete  in- 
significance, and  a  bigoted  Catholic  had  now  mounted  her 
throne.  The  Peace  of  Westphalia  had  been  more  than  once 
violated  in  Germany  to  the  detriment  of  the  Protestants,  and 
several  petty  German  princes  had  already  abandoned  the  faith. 
That  great  Protestant  country  which  is  now  Prussia,  was  then 
the  insignificant  Electorate  of  Brandenburg,  and  was  but  just 
beginning,  under  an  Elector  of  great  ability,  to  emerge  from 
obscurity.  That  great  country,  which  now  forms  the  United 
States  of  America,  consisted  then  of  a  few  rude  and  infant 
colonies,  exercising  no  kind  of  influence  beyond  their  borders, 
and  although  the  policy  of  Eoman  Catholic  nations  was  by  no 
means  invariably  subservient  to  the.  Church,  the  movement  of 
religious  scepticism  which  now  makes  the  preponderance  of 
intelligence   and    energy   in   every   Eoman    Catholic   country 


22  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

hostile  to  the  priests  had  not  yet  arisen.  From  almost  every 
point  of  the  compass  dark  and  threatening  clouds  were  gathering 
around  the  Protestant  cause,  and  the  year  1685  was  pronounced 
the  most  fatal  in  all  its  annals.  In  February  an  English  king 
declared  himself  a  Papist.  In  June  Charles,  the  Elector  Palatine, 
dying  without  issue,  the  electoral  dignity  passed  to  the  bigoted 
Popish  house  of  Neubm-g.  In  October  Lewis  XIV.  revoked 
the  edict  of  Nantes,  and  began  that  ferocious  persecution  which 
completed  the  work  of  St.  Bartholomew  in  France.  In  December 
the  Duke  of  Savoy  was  induced  by  French  persuasion  to  put  an 
end  to  the  toleration  of  the  Vaudois.' 

Happily  for  the  interests  of  the  world  the  religious  difference 
•A-as  not  the  sole  or  the  chief  line  of  national  division,  and  the 
terror  that  was  excited  by  the  ambition  of  France  enlisted  a 
great  part  of  Catholic  Europe  on  the  side  of  William.  The 
King  of  Spain  was  decidedly  in  his  favour,  and  the  Spanish 
ambassador  at  the  Hague  is  said  to  have  ordered  masses  in  his 
chapel  for  the  success  of  the  expedition.^  The  Emperor  employed 
all  his  influence  at  Kome  on  the  same  side,  and  by  singular 
good  fortune  the  Pope  himself  looked  with  favour  on  the  Kevo- 
lution.  Odescalchi,  who,  under  the  name  of  Innocent  XI.,  had 
mounted  the  Papal  throne  in  1676,  was  a  man  of  eminent  virtue 
and  moderation,  and  he  had,  in  conjunction  with  a  considerable 
body  of  the  English  Catholics,  steadily  disapproved  of  the 
violent  and  unconstitutional  means  by  which  James,  under  the 
advice  of  Father  Petre,  was  endeavouring  to  bring  the  English 
CathoHcs  to  power.  He  appears  to  have  seen  the  probability  of 
a  reaction,  and  he  wished  the  King  to  restrict  himself  to  endea- 
vouring to  obtain  toleration  for  his  coreligionists,  and  the  Eng- 
lish Catholics  to  abstain  as  much  as  possible  from  political 
ambition  and  from  every  course  that  could  arouse  the  popular 
indignation.     He  had  directed  the  general  of  the  Jesuits  to 


'  See  a  striking  picture  of  the  light  126  ;  Kemble's  State  Papeis,  p.  xli., 

in  which  this  struggle  appeared  to  xlii. 

contemporaries  in  the  Somers'  Trarta,  ^  Macpherson's  Ori^i  nal  Papers,  i. 

ix.  593-595 ;  Calamy's    Life,  i.  125-  p.  301. 


CH.  I.       ENMITY  OF  THE  POPE  TO  LEWIS  XIV.        23 

rebuke  Father  Petre  for  his  ambition,  and  he  positively  refused 
the  urgent  request  of  James  to  raise  his  fiivourite  to  the  episco- 
pate and  to  the  purple.  On  the  other  hand  he  looked  with 
extreme  apprehension  and  dislike  upon  the  policy  of  Lewis  XIV. 
In  the  interests  of  Europe  he  clearly  saw  that  the  overwhelming 
power  and  the  insatiable  ambition  of  the  French  king  formed  the 
greatest  danger  of  the  time,  and  that  the  complete  subserviency 
of  England  was  a  main  elemeat  of  his  strength.  In  the 
interests  of  the  Church  he  dreaded  the  attempts  of  Lewis,  while 
constituting  himself  the  great  representative  and  protector  of 
Catholicism  in  Europe,  to  make  himself  almost  as  absolute  in 
ecclesiastical  as  in  temporal  affairs.  The  French  king  had  for 
some  time  shown  a  peculiar  jealousy  of  papal  authority,  and 
a  peculiar  desire  to  humiliate  it.  In  a  former  pontificate  he 
had  made  use  for  this  purpose  of  a  quarrel  which  had  arisen 
between  some  Corsican  guards  of  the  Pope  and  some  Frenchmen 
attached  to  the  embassy  at  Eome,  had  seized  Avignon,  had 
threatened  to  invade  Eome,  and  had  compelled  Alexander  VII. 
to  make  the  most  abject  apologies,  to  engage  for  the  future  to  ad- 
mit no  Corsicans  into  his  service,  and  even  to  erect  a  monument 
commemorating  the  transaction.^  Soon  after  the  accession  of 
Innocent  XL,  the  feud  again  broke  out,  and  it  was 'so  bitter 
that  the  papal  com-t  began  to  look  upon  the  French  king  as 
the  worst  enemy  to  the  Church.  The  antagonism  arose  on 
the  question  of  the  right,  or  the  alleged  right,  of  the  French 
sovereign  to  appoint  to  ecclesiastical  benefices  in  France  during 
the  vacancy  of  the  episcopal  sees.  The  claim  had  long  been  con- 
tested by  the  Pope,  but  it  was  admitted  by  the  French  clergy, 
who  were  now  closely  allied  to  the  sovereign,  and  were  looking 
forward  to  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  The  dispute 
led  to  the  famous  articles  of  1682,  by  which  the  French  Church 
denied  that  the  Pope  possessed  by  Divine  right  any  temporal  . 
jm-isdiction,  declared  its  adhesion  to  the  decrees  by  which  the 
Council    of    Constance    asserted    the    supremacy    of    general 

'  De  Flassan,  Hist,  de  la  Diplomatie  Fraiifaise,  iii.  292-302. 


24  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

councils,  and  maintained  that  the  rules  and  customs  of  the 
Galilean  Church  must  prevail  in  France,  that  the  apostolic 
power  should  only  be  exercised  in  accordance  with  the  canons, 
and  that  even  on  questions  of  dogma  the  papal  decrees  were 
fallible,  unless  they  had  been  confirmed  by  the  general  adoption 
of  the  Church.  These  articles,  which  were  the  foundation  of 
Galilean  liberties,  were  published  by  order  of  the  king,  and 
registered  by  the  parliaments  and  universities,  while  the  Pope 
protested  strongly  against  them,  and  began  to  refuse  bulls  to 
those  whom  the  king  nominated  to  vacant  bishoprics. 

A  still  more  bitter  quarrel  speedily  followed.  The  Pope 
desired  to  abolish  the  scandalous  right  of  sanctuary,  by  virtue  of 
which  the  precincts  of  the  hotels  of  the  ambassadors  of  the  Great 
Powers  at  Eome  had  become  nests  of  smugglers,  bankrupts,  and 
thieves,  and  as  all  the  Great  Powers  except  France  readily 
acquiesced  in  the  reform,  he  announced  his  intention  of  receiving 
no  ambassador  who  would  not  renounce  the  shameful  privilege. 
Lewis,  however,  determined  to  maintain  it.  Contrary  to  the 
expressed  desire  of  the  Pope,  he  sent  an  ambassador  to  Eome, 
with  instructions  to  assert  the  right  of  sanctuary,  and  he 
directed  him  to  enter  Eome  as  if  it  were  a  conquered  town, 
escorted  by  a  large  body  of  French  troops.  The  Pope  refused 
to  receive  the  ambassador,  excommunicated  him,  and  placed 
the  French  church  at  Eome,  in  which  he  had  worshipped,  under 
interdict,  while  the  King  retaliated  by  arresting  the  Nuncio  at 
Paris.  Nearly  at  the  same  time  the  important  electorate  and 
archbishopric  of  Cologne  became  vacant,  and  the  Pope  opposed 
a  favourite  scheme  of  Lewis  by  refusing  his  assent  to  the  pro- 
motion to  these  dignities  of  the  French  candidate.  Cardinal 
Furstenberg.  Lewis,  on  the  other  hand,  accused  the  Pope  of 
conspiring  with  the  enemies  of  France.  He  espoused  the  claims 
of  the  Duke  of  Parma  to  some  parts  of  the  Papal  dominions, 
seized  Avignon,  and  threatened  to  send  an  army  to  Italy. 
Under  these  circumstances  Innocent  was  fully  disposed  to  listen 
with  favour  to  any  scheme  which  promised  to  repress  the 
ambition  and  arrest  the  growing  power  of  the  French  king.    He 


CH.  I.   HATRED  OF  FOREIGNERS  TURNS  AGAINST  THE  WHIGS.      25 

was  assured  that  ^^'illiam  would  grant  toleration  to  the  English 
Catholics,  and  he  actually  favoured  the  enterprise  with  his 
influence,  and  it  is  said  even  with  his  money.^  The  effect  of 
the  Eevolution,  in  some  degree  at  least,  corresponded  with  the 
expectation  of  the  allies.  The  balance  of  power  was  redressed. 
The  whole  weight  of  English  influence  was  thrown  into  the 
scale  against  F"rance,  and  a  servitude  which  had  incessantly 
galled  the  national  sentiment  of  England  was  removed. 

Very  soon,  however,  the  antipathy  to  foreigners  began  to 
act  against  the  Whigs.  It  was  not  simply  that  William  was  a 
foreign  prince,  who  had  overthrown  a  sovereign  of  English 
birth.  It  was  not  simply  that  he  never  concealed  his  partiality 
for  his  own  country,  that  he  surrounded  himself  with  Dutch 
guards  and  with  Dutch  favourites,  whom  he  rewarded  with 
lavish  profusion.  There  lay  beyond  this  another  and  a  deeper 
complaint.  William  was  the  ruler  of  a  continental  State  placed 
in  a  position  of  extreme  and  constant  danger.  He  was  above 
all  the  head  of  a  great  Em-opean  confederation  against  France, 
and  he  valued  his  accession  to  the  English  throne  chiefly  as 
enabling  him  to  employ  the  resom^ces  of  England  in  the 
struggle.  The  Tory  party  soon  began  to  complain  with  great 
plausibility,  and  with  not  a  little  truth,  that  English  interests 
were  comparatively  lost  sight  of,  that  English  blood  and 
English  treasure  were  expended  to  secure  a  stronger  barrier  for 
Holland,  that  the  Revolution  had  deprived  England  of  the  ines- 
timable advantage  of  her  insular  position  and  involved  her  inex- 
tricably in  continental  complications.  For  several  generations 
it  became  the  maxim  of  Tory  statesmen  that  England  should,  as 
far  as  possible,  isolate  herself  from  continental  embarrassments, 
and,  if  compelled  to  wage  war,  should  do  so  only  on  her  natural 
element,  the  sea.^     After  the  Peace  of  Eyswick  especially,  this 

^  ^lemoiresdaMarl'clialdeBei'ivicli,  See  too    Ranke's  Hist,    of  England, 

i.     17-18.       Macpherson"s     Original  xviii.  1. 

Papers,     i.     301-302.       Daliymple's  ^  As  Boli.ngbroke  tersely  expressed 

Menwirs  of  Great  Britain,  part  i.  bk.  it,  '  Our  true  interests   require   that 

V.  Burnet's  Onui    Times,   i.   661-6G2,  we  should  take  few  engagements  on 

706-707,772-774.  De  Flassan's  ^i«!^.  the    Continent,   and   never  those   of 

de  la I)ij>lo7natie F)-an(aise,iv, 9i-l0o.  making  a  land  war  imless  the  con- 


26  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

feeling  gathered  strength,  and  it  became  evident  that  the  Tory 
party,  which  now  rose  to  power,  and  which  undoubtedly  repre- 
sented the  true  national  sentiment,  was  resolved  to  pursue  a 
steady  policy   of  isolation  and  of  peace.     The   army,  to  the 
bitter   indignation  of  the  king,  was  reduced   to    10,000,  and 
afterwards   to   7,000   men.      The    sailors  were   reduced   from 
40  000   to  8,000.      Even  the  Dutch    guards   were   summarily 
dismissed,  and  these  measures  were  taken  at  a  time  when  a 
danger  of  the  greatest  magnitude  was  looming  on  the  horizon. 
Charles  II.  of  Spain,  was  sinking  rapidly  to  the  grave,  leaving 
no  child  to  inherit  his  vast  dominions,  and  there  were  three 
rival  claimants  for  the  succession.    The  nearest  in  point  of  birth 
was  the  Dauphin,  the  son  of  the  elder  sister  of  the  Spanish  king, 
but  his  claim  was  barred  by  a  formal  renunciation  of  all  right 
of  succession  made  by  his  mother  when  she  married  Lewis  XIV., 
and  ratified  with  great  solemnity  by  the  oath  and  the  word  of 
honour  of  her  husband  when  he  accepted  the  treaty  of  the 
Pyrenees.    Next  to  the  Dauphin  came  the  electoral  prince  of 
Bavaria,  whose  mother  was  the  daughter  of  the  younger  sister  of 
the  Spanish  king,  but  in  this  case  also  an  express  renunciation 
barred  the  title.     The  third  competitor  was  the  Emperor,  who 
could  claim  only  as  the  son  of  Charles's  aunt,  but  his  claim 
was    barred   by   no   renunciation.     The    Emperor   waived  his 
claim  in   favom-  of   his    second  son,  the    Archduke    Charles, 
but  beyond  this  he  would  make  no  concession,  though  France 
was  prepared  to  oppose  to  the  last,  and  England  was  far  from 
desiring,  so  great  an  increase  of  power  to  the  House  of  Hapsburg, 
The  electoral  prince  of  Bavaria  was  still  in  infancy  ;  his  father 
was  the   sovereign  of  an  inconsiderable  State,  and   unable  to 
enforce  his    claims.     The  queen    mother   of  Spain,   who  had 
warmly  favoured  this  disposition  of  the  crown,  died  in  1696,  and 
although  William  would  gladly  have  supported  it,  neither  the 
Austrians  nor  the  French  would  acquiesce  in  the  arrangement. 

junction  be  such  that  nothing  less       being  quite  overturned.'— 3/a»r7tff«??i< 
than  the  weight  of  Great  Britain  can       Pampers,  ii.  314. 
prevent  the   scales   of   power   from 


CH.  I.  THE   TREATIES   OF  PARTITION.  27 

The  Dauphin  resigned  his  claim  in  favour  of  his  second  son,  the 
Duke  of  Anjou,  but  Austria  was  desperately  opposed  to  his  suc- 
cession, and  William  considered  so  great  an  aggrandisement  of 
the  House  of  Bourbon  fatal  to  the  freedom  of  Europe  and  to 
the  whole  policy  of  his  life. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  relate  at  length  how  Lewis  and 
William  endeavoured  to  meet  the  difficulty  by  the  treaty  of  par- 
tition of  1698,  providing  that  on  the  death  of  the  Spanish  king 
the  Milanese  should  pass  to  the  Archduke  Charles,  the  kingdom  of 
the  Two  Sicilies,  the  Tuscan  ports,  the  marquisate  of  Finale,  and 
the  province  of  Guipuscoa  to  the  Dauphin,  and  the  remainder  of 
the  Spanish  dominions  to  the  electoral  prince  of  Bavaria ;  how,  on 
the  death  of  the  last-named  prince  a  second  partition  treaty 
was  signed  in  1700,  granting  Spain,  the  Spanish  Netherlands, 
and  the  Indies,  to  the  Archduke,  increasing  the  compensation 
to  France  by  the  Duchies  of  Lorraine  and  Bar,  and  transferring 
the  Duke  of  Lorraine  to  the  Milanese  ;  how  these  treaties  were 
made  without  communication  with  the  sovereign  and  states- 
men of  the  Spanish  monarchy,  which  was  so  unceremoniously 
disposed  of,  without  the  assent  of  the  Emperor,  who  refused  to 
diminish  any  of  his  pretensions,  without  any  real  regard  for 
the  opinion  of  English  ministers,  though  an  English  army 
would  probably  be  required  to  enforce  their  provisions ;  how 
when  the  project  became  known  in  Spain  a  fierce  storm  of 
indignation  convulsed  the  land,  and  the  dying  king,  who  had 
once  favoured  the  Bavarian  succession,  was  induced,  after  many 
vacillations,  to  endeavour  to  save  his  kingdom  from  dissolution 
by  bequeathing  the  whole  to  the  Duke  of  Anjou ;  and  how 
upon  the  death  of  Charles,  in  the  November  of  1700,  Lewis 
tore  to  shreds  the  treaty  he  had  signed,  and  boldly  accepted 
the  bequest  for  his  grandson.  What  we  have  especially  to 
notice  is  the  attitude  of  parties  in  England.  The  whole 
Tory  party,  which  was  now  rising  to  the  ascendant,  steadily 
censured  the  interference  of  England  in  the  contest.  When  the 
projects  of  partition  were  announcedthey  were  received  with  the 
severest  disapprobation,  and  when  the  will  of  Charles  was  pub- 


28       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      ch.  i. 

lished  the  Tories  strenuously  urged  that  England  should 
acquiesce.  '  It  grieves  me  to  the  soul,'  wrote  William  with 
extreme  bitterness,  '  that  almost  everyone  rejoices  that  France 
has  preferred  the  will  to  the  treaty.'  *  Independently  of  the 
gross  injustice  of  measures  for  dividing  by  force  a  great 
monarchy  which  had  given  no  provocation  to  its  neighbours,  it 
was  contended  that  the  terms  of  the  partition  treaty  would  have 
given  France  a  most  dangerous  ascendancy,  that  the  possession 
of  Naples  and  the  Tuscan  ports  would  have  made  her  supreme  in 
the  Mediterranean,  that  the  possession  of  Guipuscoa  would  have 
given  her  the  trade  of  the  West  Indies  and  of  South  America,  and 
have  placed  Spain  at  her  mercy  in  time  of  war,  that  the  acqui- 
sition of  so  long  a  line  of  valuable  seaboai'd,  in  addition  to  what 
she  already  possessed,  would  have  imparted  an  immense  impulse 
to  her  naval  power.  The  dangers  resulting  from  the  will  were, 
it  was  said,  much  less.  The  strong  national  sentiment  of  the 
Spanish  people,  who  have  been  pre-eminently  jealous  of  foreign 
interference,  might  fairly  be  relied  on  to  counteract  the  French 
sympathies  of  their  sovereign ;  and  Spanish  jealousy  had  been 
rendered  peculiarly  sensitive  by  the  participation  of  Lewis  in  the 
partition  treaties.  Nor  was  it  likely  that  a  prince,  placed  at  a  very 
early  age  on  a  great  throne,  surrounded  by  Spanish  influences, 
and  courted  by  every  Power  in  Europe,  would  be  characterised 
by  an  excessive  deference  to  his  grandfather.  Above  all,  it  was  a 
matter  of  vital  importance  to  England  that  she  should  enjoy  a 
period  of  repose  after  her  long  and  exhausting  war,  and  that 
the  system  of  standing  armies,  of  national  debts,  and  of  foreign 
subsidies,  should  come  to  an  end. 

These  were  the  views  of  the  Tory  party,  and  there  can  be 
little  question  that  they  would  have  prevailed,  in  spite  of  tlie 
opposition  of  the  king,  had  Lewis,  at  this  critical  moment,  acted 
with  common  prudence  and  common  moderation.  There  was 
one  point  on  the  Continent,  however,  which  no  patriotic  Eng- 
lishman,  whether  Whig   or  Tory,  could  look  upon  with  in- 

'  Hardwicke's  State  Papers,  ii.  396. 


CH.  I.  LEWIS  SEIZES   THE   DUTCH   BARRIER.  29 

difference.  The  line  of  Spanish  fortresses  which  protected  the 
Netherlands  from  the  ambition  of  France  was  of  vital  import- 
ance to  the  secm-ity  of  Holland,  and  if  Holland  passed  into 
French  hands  it  was  more  than  doubtful  whether  English  inde- 
pendence would  long  survive.  To  preserve  these  fortresses  from 
French  aggrandisement  had  been  for  generations  a  main  end  of 
English  policy ;  during  the  last  fifty  years  torrents  of  English 
blood  had  been  shed  to  secure  them ;  and  with  this  object, 
William  had  agreed  with  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  who  governed 
them  as  the  representative  of  the  Spanish  King,  that  they 
should  be  garrisoned  in  part  with  Dutch  troops.  Propositions 
for  the  absolute  cession  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  to  the 
Elector  of  Bavaria  had  been  made,  but  for  various  reasons 
abandoned  ;  but  the  maintenance  of  the  Dutch  garrisons  was  of 
extreme  importance,  and  if,  as  was  alleged,  the  transfer  of  the 
Spanish  monarchy  to  the  grandson  of  Lewis  XIV.  did  not  mean 
the  subserviency  of  Spain  to  French  policy,  it  was  on  this, 
beyond  all  other  questions,  that  the  most  careful  neutrality  should 
have  been  shown.  Lewis,  however,  was  quite  determined  that 
these  garrisons  should  cease,  and  he  at  the  same  time  saw  the 
possibility  of  forcing  the  Dutch  to  recognise  the  validity  of 
the  will  of  Charles  11.  With  the  assent  of  the  Spanish  autho- 
rities he  sent  a  French  army  into  the  Spanish  Netherlands, 
occupied  the  whole  line  of  Spanish  fortresses  in  the  name  of  his 
grandson,  and  in  a  time  of  perfect  peace  detained  the  Dutch 
garrison  prisoners  until  Holland  had  recognised  the  title  of  the 
new  sovereign  to  the  Spanish  throne. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  either  the  arrogance  or 
the  folly  of  this  act.  The  Tory  party,  which  in  the  beginning 
of  1701  was  ascendant  in  England,  was  bitterly  hostile  to 
William  ;  the  partition  treaties  excited  throughout  the  country 
deep  and  general  discontent,  and  the  ardent  wish  of  the  English 
people  was  to  detach  their  country  as  far  as  possible  from  conti- 
nental complications,  and  to  secure  a  long  and  permanent  peace 
on  the  basis  of  a  frank  acceptance  of  the  will  of  Charles  II.  But 
it  was  impossible  that  any  English  party,  however  hostile  to 


30  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  cu.  i. 

William,  could  see  with  indifference  the  whole  line  of  Spanish 
fortresses,  including  Luxemburg,  Mons,  Namur,  Charleroi,  and 
the  seaports  of  Nieuport  and  Ostend  occupied  by  the  French, 
the  whole  English  policy  of  the  last  war  overthrown  without  a 
blow,  and  the  transfer  of  the  Spanish  monarchy  to  Philip  im- 
mediately employed  in  the  interests  of  French  ambition.  When 
the  Dutch  formally  applied  for  the  succour  which,  under  such 
circumstances,  England  was  bound  by  treaty  to  furnish,  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  declared  their  determination  to  fulfil  their 
obligations,  and  English  troops  were  actually  sent  to  Holland  ; 
but  still  several  months  of  anxious  negotiation  ensued,  and  on 
the  side  of  England  there  was  a  most  sincere  and  earnest  desire 
to  avert  the  war.  Party  spirit  ran  furiously  at  home.  The  two 
Houses  were  engaged  in  bitter  quarrels,  and  the  Tories  lost 
no  opportunity  of  irritating  the  king.  The  Commons  ordered 
Portland,  Somers,  Halifax,  and  Orford  to  be  impeached ;  they 
censured  in  the  severest  terms  the  treaties  of  partition,  and  the 
Tory  ministers  compelled  William,  even  after  the  French  aggres- 
sion on  the  Dutch,  to  recognise  Philip  as  king  of  Spain.  The 
Act  of  Settlement,  which  was  made  necessary  by  the  death  of 
the  young  Duke  of  Gloucester,  the  last  surviving  child  of  Anne, 
secured,  indeed,  the  crown  to  the  Protestant  House  of  Bruns- 
wick,  but  sm-rounded  it  with  limitations  extremely  offensive  to 
the  king.  The  House  of  Commons,  which  was  so  violently 
Tory,  had  been  but  just  elected,  and  though  a  warlike  spirit 
was  slowly  growing  in  the  country,  it  was  not  only  possible, 
but  easy  to  have  allayed  it.  Had  the  French  sovereign  con- 
sented to  re-establish  the  Dutch  garrisons  in  some  at  least 
of  the  frontier  towns,  or  had  he  consented  to  the  transfer  of 
the  Spanish  Netherlands  either  to  the  Emperor  or  to  Holland, 
the  peace  of  Europe  might  have  been  preserved.  But  he 
was  seized  at  this  moment  with  what  appeared  a  judicial 
blindness.  He  did  not  desire  war,  but  he  imagined  that  his 
power  would  intimidate  all  opponents.  If  a  war  broke  out,  the 
great  resources  of  France  and  Spain  would  be  united.  France 
had  secured  the  alliance  of  the  Dukes  of  Savoy  and  of  Mantua 


CH.  t.  THE   GRAND  ALLIANCE.  31 

in  Italy,  of  the  Electors  of  Bavaria  and  Cologne  in  Grermany, 
and  had  opened  what  appeared  to  be  promising  negotiations 
with  Portugal.  The  Emperor  was  embarrassed  by  troubles  pro- 
duced in  Hungary  by  Eakoczy,  the  bravest  and  most  popular 
of  Hungarian  chiefs,  and  in  Germany  itself  he  had  aroused 
much  jealousy  among  the  princes  of  the  Empire,  by  creating  a 
new  electorate  for  Hanover,  and  by  raising  the  electorate  of 
Brandenburg  into  the  kingdom  of  Prussia.  The  King  of  England 
seemed  paralysed  by  the  opposition  of  his  Parliament,  while  the 
fortresses  that  were  the  key  to  Holland  were  in  French  hands. 
Under  these  circumstances,  Lewis  persuaded  himself  that  there 
was  nothing  to  fear.  He  released  the  Dutch  troops,  indeed,  on 
obtaining  a  recognition  of  the  title  of  his  grandson,  and  he 
offered  to  withdraw  his  troops  from  the  fortresses  they  had 
seized  as  soon  as  the  Spaniards  were  able  fully  to  garrison  them, 
but  he  would  give  no  further  security  to  Holland.  The  light 
in  which  he  looked  upon  events  was  very  clearly  shown  in  his 
speech  to  the  constable  of  Castille  in  the  beginning  of  1701. 
'  The  French  and  Spanish  nations,'  he  said,  '  are  so  united  that 

they  will  henceforth  be  only  one My  grandson,  at  the  head 

of  the  Spaniards,  will  defend  the  French.  I,  at  the  head  of  the 
PVench,  will  defend  the  Spaniards.'  ^  The  Emperor  was  already 
in  arms.  A  great  change  passed  over  public  opinion  in  England. 
It  was  chiefly  shown  in  the  House  of  Lords,  but  it  appeared 
also,  though  much  less  strongly,  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  on  the  7th  of  September,  1701,  William  concluded 
the  triple  alliance  of  England,  Holland,  and  the  Emperor, 
for  the  purpose  of  recovering  the  Low  Countries  from  the 
hands  of  the  French,  securing  them  as  a  barrier  to  protect  the 
United  Provinces  from  the  French,  and  redressing  the  balance  of 
power  by  obtaining  for  the  Emperor  the  Spanish  dominions  in 
Italy. 

Such  was  the  foundation  of  that  great  alliance  v^hich  for  a 
time  brought  the  French   power  to  the  lowest  depth.     It  was 

'  De  Flassan,  Hist,  de  la  Dijilmu/itie  Fmnqithe,  iv.  203. 


32  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

strengthened  in  1 702  by  the  accession  of  the  new  kingdom  of 
Prussia,  and  afterwards  of  nearly  the  whole  Empire,  and  in  the 
following  year  by  the  accession  of  Portugal,  and  by  the  change 
of  sides  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  Its  prospects  of  success  were 
at  first,  however,  very  gloomy.  William  was  now  dying.  The 
Tory  party,  which  was  bitterly  hostile  to  him  and  exceedingly 
reluctant  to  engage  in  the  war,  had  a  large  majority  in  the 
Commons.  War  was  not  yet  declared,  and  the  treaty  of  alli- 
ance provided  that  two  months  should  pass  before  any  active  steps 
of  hostility  were  taken.  It  was  not  improbable  that  before  that 
time  the  king,  who  was  the  soul  of  the  policy  of  war,  would  be 
in  his  grave,  and  it  was  certain  that  the  alliance  itself  could 
easily  have  been  broken  up  by  very  moderate  concessions.  The 
jealousy  between  England  and  Holland,  the  profound  dislike  of 
the  ruling  party  in  the  former  to  continental  wars,  the  differ- 
ence of  aim  between  the  Emperor,  who  claimed  the  whole 
Spanish  dominions,  and  the  Dutch  and  English,  who  desired 
only  to  secure  Holland  and  to  restore  the  balance  of  power  by  a 
partition,  threatened  to  prevent  all  energetic  and  united  action, 
and  it  was  more  than  doubtful  whether  the  Commons  would 
vote  adequate  subsidies,  when  Lewis  himself,  by  an  act  of  gra- 
tuitous folly,  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  affairs.  Only  ten 
days  after  the  triple  alliance  was  signed  James  II.  died,  and 
Lewis,  who  had  bound  himself  by  the  peace  of  Kyswick  to 
take  no  step  calculated  to  disturb  William  in  his  possession  of 
the  throne  of  England,  resolved,  in  spite  of  the  earnest  en- 
treaty of  his  ministers,  to  recognise  the  Pretender  as  king  of 
England.  The  effect  on  the  English  nation  was  instantaneous. 
Th6  storm  which  had  for  some  months  been  slowly  gathering 
burst  into  a  hurricane.  The  attempt  of  a  French  king  to  pre- 
scribe to  the  English  people  the  sovereign  whom  they  should 
obey  touched  acutely  that  sentiment  of  national  jealousy  of 
foreign  interference  which  was  then  the  strongest  of  English 
sentiments,  and  William,  by  dissolving  parliament  while  the 
resentment  was  at  its  height,  overthrew  the  Tory  power  and 
obtained  a  large  majority  pledged  to  the  policy  of  war. 


CH.  1  ACCESSION   OF  ANNE  33 

William  died  on  the  8th  of  March,  1702.  He  did  not 
live  to  declare  the  war,  but  he  lived  to  fill  his  ministry  -with 
statesmen  who  were  favourable  to  it,  and  to  see  the  new  House 
of  Commons  carry  addresses  and  vote  military  supplies  which 
made  it  inevitable.  The  sudden  fluctuation  of  the  national 
sentiments  in  1701  is  very  remarkable.  In  that  year  there  had 
been  the  most  unusual  spectacle  of  two  new  parliaments  violently 
antagonistic  in  their  policy.  The  parliament  which  met  for  the 
first  time  in  February  was  vehemently  and  aggressively  Tory.  The 
parliament  which  met  in  December  contained  a  large  majority 
of  Whigs.  The  change,  however,  was  in  reality  more  super- 
ficial than  might  appear.  The  strong  national  jealousy  of  foreign 
rulers,  and  foreign  politics,  and  foreign  interference,  which  was 
usually  the  strength  of  the  Tory  party,  was  as  vehement  as  ever, 
though  it  had  for  the  moment  been  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the 
Whigs.  It  was  no  attachment  to  the  Dutch  sovereig-n,  no  desire 
to  alter  the  disposition  of  power  on  the  Continent  in  the  general 
interests  of  Europe  that  animated  the  electors,  but  solely  re- 
sentment at  French  interference  ;  and  few  English  sovereigns 
have  ever  sunk  to  the  tomb  less  regretted  by  the  mass  of  the 
English  nation  than  William  III. 

With  such  sentiments  prevailing  in  the  nation,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  accession  of  Anne  should  have  been  followed 
by  a  violent  reflux  of  Tory  feeling.  The  queen  herself  was 
intensely  Tory  in  her  sympathies,  and  though  intellectually  she 
was  below  the  average  of  her  subjects,  she  was  in  many  respects 
well  fitted  to  revive  the  party.  Her  character,  though  some- 
what peevish  and  very  obstinate,  was  pure,  generous,  simple, 
and  affectionate,  and  she  had  displayed,  under  bereavements  far 
inore  numerous  than  fall  to  the  share  of  most,  a  touching  piety 
that  endeared  her  to  her  people.  Her  part  in  the  Revolution 
had  been  comparatively  small.  She  was,  as  she  stated  in  her 
first  speech  from  the  throne,  '  entirely  English  '  at  heart,  and 
the  strongest  and  deepest  passion  of  her  nature  was  attachment 
to  the  English  Church.  Though  promising  her  protection  to 
the  Dissenters,  she  looked  with  secret  horror  on  the  toleration 
VOL.  I.  4 


34  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

they  enjoyed,  and  her  own  severe  orthodoxy  had  been  undimmed 
in  the  Popish  court  of  her  father,  and  in  the  latitudinarian 
atmosphere  of  the  Revolution.  Her  reverence  for  ecclesiastical 
authority  was  early  shown  when  she  rebuked  her  chaplain  at 
Windsor  for  administering  to  her  the  sacrament  before  the 
clergy  ;^  her  zeal  against  the  Dissenters,  when  she  compelled  her 
husband,  though  himself  a  Lutheran,  holding  high  office  under 
the  Crown,  to  vote  for  the  bill  against  occasional  conformity ; 
her  care  for  the  interests  of  the  Church,  when  she  surrendered 
to  it  those  firstfruits  and  tenths  which  had  originally  been 
claimed  by  the  Pope,  and  had  been  afterwards  appropriated 
by  the  Crown;  her  generosity,  when  she  devoted  100,000^ 
out  of  the  first  year's  income  of  her  civil  list,  to  alleviate  the 
public  burdens.  In  the  eyes  of  the  upholders  of  Divine  right, 
she  was  as  near  a  legitimate  sovereign  as  it  was  then  possible 
for  a  Protestant  to  be,  and  it  was  felt  that  her  own  sympathies 
would  be  entirely  with  the  legitimate  cause,  but  for  her  stronger 
affection  for  the  English  Church.  In  this  respect  she  repre- 
sented with  singular  fidelity  the  feelings  of  her  people,  and  she 
became  the  provisional  object  of  much  of  that  peculiar  attach- 
ment which  is  usually  bestowed  only  on  a  sovereign  whose  title 
is  beyond  dispute.  It  was  also  a  happy  circumstance  for  the 
glory  of  her  reign,  though  not  for  the  Tory  party,  that  the  wife 
of  the  greatest  living  Englishman  exercised  at  this  time  an 
almost  absolute  empire  over  the  royal  mind.  A  great  war 
was  inevitable  and  imminent,  and  Marlborough  became  almost 
omnipotent  in  the  State.  Within  a  few  days  of  the  accession  of 
the  sovereign  he  was  nominated  Knight  of  the  Garter ;  he  was 
made  Captain-General  of  the  Forces,  and  was  sent  to  Holland 
on  a  special  mission  to  ratify  the  new  alliance  against  France, 
while  his  wife  was  intrusted  with  the  management  of  the  privy 
purse,  and  made  groom  of  the  stole,  mistress  of  the  robes,  and 
ranger  of  Windsor  Park.  Godolphin,  whose  son  had  married 
the  daughter  of  Marlborough,  and  who  was  bound  to  Marl- 

•  Coke's  Detection. 


oit.  I.  FORMATION    OF   THE   MINISTRY.  35 

borough  in  the  closest  friendship,  became  Lord  Treasurer.  He 
had  been  actively  engaged  in  political  life  since  the  first  parlia- 
ment of  the  Restoration,  and  his  long  career  had  been  on  the 
whole  singularly  unsullied  at  a  time  and  imder  circumstances 
when  political  integrity  was  extremely  rare.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  Halifax,  he  was  incontestably  the  foremost  financier  of 
his  age ;  an  old,  wary,  taciturn,  plodding,  unobtrusive,  and 
moderate  man,  who,  though  he  had  voted  in  turn  for  the  Ex- 
clusion Bill  and  for  the  regency,  had  won  the  confidence  both 
of  James  and  William,  and  who  without  any  strong  convictions, 
any  charm  of  manners,  or  any  brilliancy  or  fascination  of  intel- 
lect, had  more  than  once  stood  in  the  first  line  of  party  warfare. 
He  was  now  attached,  though  without  fanaticism,  to  the  Tories  ; 
and  his  experience,  his  prudence,  his  administrative  talents,  and 
his  respectable  and  conciliatory  character,  made  him  well  fitted 
to  preside  over  the  Government.  The  ministry  was  rapidly  re- 
organised by  the  appointment  of  Tories  to  most  of  the  leading 
places.  Howe,  the  bitterest  assailant  of  William,  was  now 
called  to  the  Privy  Council,  and  made  one  of  the  Paymasters 
of  the  Forces.  Nottingham,  who  of  all  statesmen  was  most  dear 
to  the  High  Church  party,  was  made  one  of  the  Secretaries  of 
State,  his  colleague  being  Sir  Charles  Hedges.  Harcourt,  the 
ablest  Tory  lawyer,  and  Seymour,  the  most  influential  Tory 
country  gentleman  in  the  Lower  House,  were  made  respectively 
Solicitor-General  and  Comptroller  of  the  Household.  Lord 
Pembroke  became  Lord  President,  Lord  Bradford,  treasurer  of 
the  household,  and  Lord  Normanby,  who  was  soon  after  created 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  Privy  Seal.  Wright  continued  to  be  Chan- 
cellor, and  Rochester  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland.  The  great 
Whig  names  of  Somers,  Orford,  and  Halifax  were  omitted  from 
the  Privy  Council.  Prince  George,  the  husband  of  the  Queen, 
was  gratified  by  the  title  of  Generalissimo  of  the  Forces,  and  he 
was  also  very  injudiciously  made  High  Admiral,  and  thus  placed 
at  the  head  of  the  naval  administration.  The  House  of  Com- 
mons, in  accordance  with  the  law,  was  dissolved  within  six 
months  of  the  death  of  the  last  sovereign,  and  the  constituen- 


36  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  l 

cies,  which  at  the  close  of  the  preceding  year  had  sent  in  a 
decided  Whig  majority,  now  retturned  a  House  in  which  the 
Tories  were  nearly  double  the  number  of  the  Whigs. 

The  victory  of  the  party  was  complete,  but  it  was  very 
transient,  and  the  exigencies  of  foreign  policy  again  speedily 
modified  the  home  policy  of  England.  It  was  a  strange  for- 
tune that  bequeathed  to  the  Tory  party,  in  the  very  moment  of 
its  triumph,  a  Whig  war,  and  the  great  general  who  rose  to 
power  had  the  strongest  personal  reasons  for  promoting  it. 
William,  who  had  been  reconciled  to  him  at  the  close  of  his 
reign,  had  taken  him  with  him  on  his  last  journey  to  Holland, 
and  had  given  him  the  chief  part  in  negotiating  the  triple 
alliance.  Independently,  therefore,  of  all  considerations  of 
militaiy  ambition,  Marlborough  was  personally  committed  to 
the  policy  of  war.  Nor,  indeed,  was  it  possible  to  avoid  it. 
The  engagements  of  the  allies  were  too  explicit ;  the  feeling 
aroused  in  England  by  the  recognition  of  the  Pretender  was 
too  strong ;  the  dangers  arising  from  the  will  of  Charles  II., 
as  disclosed  by  the  proceedings  of  Lewis  in  the  Netherlands,  were 
too  glaring  for  any  English  party  to  remain  passive.  The  Tories 
felt  this,  and  though  it  was  one  of  the  main  objects  of  their 
policy  to  withdraw  the  country  from  Continental  complications, 
they  in  general  concurred  in  the  declaration  of  war  which  was 
issued  on  the  fomlh  of  May.  Dissensions,  however,  speedily 
arose.  Eochester,  who  had  been  regarded  as  the  leader  of 
the  party,  was  bitterly  disappointed  at  not  obtaining  a  more 
influential  place  than  that  of  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 
The  second  son  of  the  great  Lord  Clarendon,  and  conse- 
quently the  uncle  of  the  Queen,  he  had  long  viewed  with 
great  jealousy  the  ascendancy  the  Marlboroughs  had  ob- 
tained over  her  mind.  His  Toryism  was  of  a  very  different 
complexion  from  that  of  Marlborough  and  Godolphin,  and  he 
wished  to  push  the  victory  of  the  party  to  its  extreme  conse- 
quences, expelling  the  few  Whigs  who  remained  from  the 
former  administration.  Nottingham,  with  several  other  mem- 
bers of  the   party,  dissented  for  less  personal   reasons.     They 


m.  1.  DISSENSIONS  IN  THE   MINISTRY.  37 

had  been  forced  reluctantly  into  a  war  which  had  been  pre- 
pared by  William  ;  but  they  desired  at  least  that  it  should  be 
carried  on  within  the  narrowest  limits ;  that  England  should, 
as  much  as  possible,  restrict  herself  to  defensive  operations  and 
to  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  that  she  should  enter  into  the 
struggle  not  as  a  principal,  but  as  an  auxiliary.  They  objected 
to  every  vigqrous  measure  that  was  taken — to  the  march  of  the 
English  troops  into  Germany,  to  the  encouragement  given  to  the 
Protestant  insurrection  of  the  Cevennes.  It  was  not  likely  that 
a  Government  virtually  ruled  by  a  great  and  ambitious  general 
would  yield  to  such  views,  and  Godolphin  and  Marlborough, 
finding  their  foreign  policy  most  cordially  supported  by  the 
Whigs,  began  from  this  time  steadily  to  gravitate  to  that 
party.  The  defection  of  Eochester  in  1702,  and  of  Notting- 
ham in  1 704  ;  the  dismissal  in  the  same  year  of  Lord  Jersey 
and  Sir  Edward  Seymour ;  the  dismissal  of  the  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham from  the  Privy  Seal  in  1705,  changed  the  whole  spirit 
of  the  Government,  while  tlie  great  popularity  of  the  war  pro- 
duced a  correspondiug  change  in  the  spirit  of  the  country. 
There  were  many  reasons  why  this  war  should  be  regarded  in 
a  light  wholly  different  from  that  of  William.  From  the  time 
when. Lewis  recognised  the  Pretender,  it  became  a  truly  national 
war,  produced  by  a  great  outburst  of  national  resentment. 
The  English  troops  were  now  commanded  by  an  English  general, 
and  by  a  general  of  whose  transcendant  genius  his  countrymen 
were  soon  justly  proud.  The  army,  which  during  the  greater  part 
of  the  last  war  was  still  raw  and  almost  undisciplined,  had  now 
acquired  the  qualities  of  veterans,*  and  the  nation  was  soon 
excited  by  the  struggle  and  intoxicated  by  the  cup  of  military 
glory. 

'  *  What  I  remember  to  have  heard  that  had  been  opposed  to  them  in  the 

the  Dake  of  Marlborough  say  before  last,   were  raw    for   the  most    part 

he  went  to  take  on  him  the  command  when  it  began,  the  British  particu- 

of  the  army  in  the  Low  Countries  in  larly,  but  they  were  disciplined,  if 

1702  proved  true.     The  French  mis-  I  may  say  so,  by  their  defeats.     They 

reckoned  very  much  if  they  made  the  were  gro%vn  to  be  victorious  at  the 

same  comparison  between  their  troops  peace    of     Ryswic' — Bolingbroke's 

and  those  of  their  enemies,  as  they  Sketch  of  the  Hist,  of  Europe. 
had  made  in  precedent  wars.    Those 


38       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.      ch.  l 

This  change  in  the  political  character  of  the  ministry  at  a 
time  when  its  two  principal  figures  remained  the  same,  is  very 
remarkable.  Both  Grodolphin  and  Marlborough,  however,  were 
wholly  destitute  of  strong  party  feelings,  and  both  of  them 
desired  a  ministry  in  which  each  party  was  represented.  The 
first  was  naturally  a  very  moderate  Tory ;  the  second  held,  as 
far  as  possible,  aloof  from  party  contests.  He  had  acted  in  turn 
with  each  party,  and  he  had  several  private  grounds  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  Whigs.  His  wife  had  decided  WTiig  leanings  ; 
his  son-in-law,  Sunderland,  was  one  of  the  most  violent  members 
of  the  "VMiig  party ;  and  when  Marlborough  was  made  Duke,  in 
1702,  the  Tory  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons  had  rejected 
the  proposal  of  the  Queen  to  annex  a  grant  of  5,000^.  a  year  for 
ever  to  the  title.  The  strong  Tory  sympathies  of  the  Queen, 
and  the  great  outburst  of  Church  enthusiasm  that  followed  her 
accession  had  given  the  administration  a  more  exclusively  Tory 
character  than  either  of  its  chiefs  desired,  and  they  had  no 
sympathy  with  that  large  section  of  their  followers  who  were 
endeavouring  to  carry  matters  to  extremities,  who  desired  to 
expel  the  Whigs  even  from  the  most  subordinate  offices,  and 
who  would  gladly  have  repealed  the  Toleration  Act.  The  fierce 
party  spirit  shown  by  the  Tory  party  towards  the  close  of 
the  preceding  reign  had  deeply  injured  its  reputation  with 
moderate  men,  and  there  were  signs  that  a  similar  spirit  was 
again  animating  it.  The  bill  against  occasional  conformity 
was  supported  by  all  the  weight  of  the  Crown ;  a  manifest  cen- 
sure upon  the  late  king  was  implied  in  the  resolution  compli- 
menting Marlborough  on  having  '  signally  retrieved  the  ancient 
honour  and  glory  of  the  English  nation  ; '  the  attitude  of  the 
House  of  Commons  to  the  House  of  Lords,  in  which  the  WTiig 
element  preponderated,  was  extremely  ofiensive  ;  and  it  is  pro- 
bable that  a  most  dangerous  reaction  would  have  ensued  but  for 
the  counteracting  influence  of  the  war. 

During  the  first  two  years,  however,  there  was  but  little  to 
arouse  enthusiasm.  In  July  1701,  before  England  had  engaged 
in  the  war,  Eugene,  at  the  head  of  an  Austrian  army,  entered 


CH.  I.  MILITARY   OPERATIONS    1702—1704.  39 

Italy  by  the  valley  of  the  Trent,  defeated  the  French  at  Carpi, 
on  the  Adige,  and  compelled  Catinat  to  retreat  beyond  tlie 
Oglio,  and  in  the  June  of  the  following  year  the  Imperial 
and  Dutch  forces  succeeded,  after  a  long  and  bloody  siege, 
in  capturing  Kaisers werth  on  the  Rhine.  It  had  been  put 
into  the  hands  of  the  French  by  the  Elector  of  Cologne,  and,  as 
it  exposed  both  the  circle  of  Westphalia  and  the  dominions  of  the 
States  to  invasion,  it  was  of  great  military  importance.  In  Sep- 
tember 1702  the  still  more  important  fortress  of  Landau  was 
taken  by  the  Prince  of  Baden.  Marlborough  commanded  an 
army  of  invasion  in  the  Spanish  Guelderland,  but  he  was 
thwarted  and  trammelled  at  every  step  by  his  Dutch  and  German 
allies ;  and,  though  he  took  the  line  of  fortresses  along  the  Meuse, 
captured  Bonn,  and  subdued  Limburg  and  the  whole  bishopric 
of  Liege,  he  fought  no  pitched  battle,  and  gained  no  very  bril- 
liant success.  The  only  regular  battle  in  the  Netherlands  was 
at  Eckeren,  near  Antwerp,  where  a  Dutch  detachment,  com- 
manded by  the  Dutch  general  Obdam,  was  surprised  and  defeated 
by  a  very  superior  French  force  commanded  by  Boufflers.  In 
Spain,  the  failure  of  an  English  expedition  against  Cadiz 
was  redeemed  by  the  capture  or  destruction  of  a  large  fleet  of 
Spanish  galleons  under  the  escort  of  some  French  frigates  in 
the  Bay  of  Vigo  ;  but  in  Italy,  on  the  Danube,  and  on  the  Ehine, 
the  advantage  lay  decidedly  with  the  French.  Eugene  failed 
in  his  attempt  to  take  Cremona,  though  he  succeeded  in  cap- 
turing Villeroy,  the  French  commander ;  he  was  compelled  to 
raise  the  siege  of  Mantua,  and  the  battle  of  Luzzara,  in  which 
he  encountered  Vendome,  was  indecisive  in  its  issue.  Visconti 
was  defeated  by  Vendome  in  the  battle  of  San  Vittoria,  and  the 
defection  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy  from  the  French  was  pimished 
by  the  occupation  of  a  great  part  of  his  territory.'  In  Ger- 
many several  serious  disasters  befell  the  allies.  The  Prince  of 
Baden  was  defeated  by  Villars  in  the  battle  of  Friedlingen,  and 
the  Count  de  Stirum  in  the  battle  of  Hochstadt.  Ulm  was  seized 
by  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  who  was  in  alliance  with  the  French. 
Brisach  was   captured   by   the   Duke  of  Burgundy.     Tallard, 


40  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

having  defeated  the  Germans  in  the  battle  of  Spirbach,  re- 
captured Landau,  and  Augsburg  was  taken  by  the  Elector 
of  Bavaria.  On  both  sides  the  dangers  of  foreign  war  were 
soon  complicated  by  those  of  rebellion  at  home,  for  the  atro- 
cious persecution  of  the  Protestants  had  roused  a  fierce  storm 
in  the  Cevennes,  while  in  Hungary  the  insurrection,  which  had 
been  for  a  short  time  suppressed,  broke  out  anew.  The  fortunes 
of  the  war  were  not  fully  changed  till  1704,  when  Marlborough, 
in  spite  of  innumerable  obstacles  from  his  own  allies,  marched  to 
the  Danube,  and  having  broken  the  Bavarian  lines  near  Donau- 
werth,  succeeded,  in  combination  with  Eugene,  in  striking  a 
fatal  blow  at  the  power  of  France.  That  year  was  indeed  one 
of  the  most  glorious  in  the  military  annals  of  England.  By 
the  great  victory  of  Blenheim,  the  united  forces  of  the  French 
and  Bavarians  were  hopelessly  shattered.  The  prestige  of  the 
French  arras  received  a  shock  from  which  it  never  recovered 
during  the  war.  The  conquests  in  Germany  during  the  pre- 
ceding years  were  all  recovered,  and  the  French  being  driven 
headlong  from  Germany,  Bavaria  was  compelled  to  cede  all 
her  strong  places  to  the  Emperor,  and  to  withdraw  from  her 
alliance  with  France.  Lorraine  and  Alsace  were  both  seriously 
menaced  by  the  occupation  of  Treves,  and  by  the  capture  of 
Landau,  whilst  in  another  region  Eooke  planted  the  British 
flag  on  the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  from  which  the  most  desperate 
and  most  persevering  efforts  have  been  unable  to  displace  it. 

It  was  inevitable  that  such  success  should  strengthen  the  party 
especially  associated  with  the  war,  and  the  changed  spirit  of 
the  Government  was  shown  by  its  attitude  towards  the  Occasional 
Conformity  Bill.  In  1702  the  Court  had  warmly  and  ostenta- 
tiously supported  it ;  in  1703  it  was  coldly  neutral.  The  Tories 
were  divided  on  the  question  whether  to  tack  it  to  a  bill 
of  supply  in  order  to  overcome  the  opposition  of  the  Lords, 
and  at  the  end  of  1704  this  qiiestion  gave  rise  to  a  great 
schism  in  their  ranks.  The  clergy,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
had  expected  the  speedy  repeal  of  the  Toleration  Act,  were 
furious  at  the  change.     The  cry  of  '  Church  in  danger  ! '  was 


CH.  I.  AGITATION  OF  THE   HIGH   CHURCH  PARTY.  41 

raised,  and  a  fierce  ecclesiastical  agitation  began.  At  Cam- 
bridge the  opponents  of  the  Occasional  Conformity  Bill  were 
hooted  by  the  students.  At  Oxford,  which  had  so  long  prided 
itself  on  its  loyalty,  a  weather-cock  was  erected,  bearing  the 
Queen's  motto  semnper  eadem,  with  the  translation  '  worse  and 
worse.' '  The  Lower  House  of  Convocation  rang  with  complaints 
of  the  conduct  of  the  bisliops,  who  usually  leaned  to  counsels  of 
moderation ;  of  the  administration  of  baptism  by  Dissenting 
ministers  in  private  houses ;  of  the  schools  and  seminaries  in 
which  the  Dissenters  educated  their  young ;  of  the  hardship  of 
obliging  the  parochial  clergy  to  administer  the  Sacrament  as 
a  qualiiication  for  office  to  notorious  schismatics.  The  Church 
was  described  in  many  pulpits  as  on  the  brink  of  destruction, 
and  the  ministers  were  accused  of  treacherously  alienating  the 
Queen  from  its  interests.  The  country,  however,  was  still  under 
the  spell  of  the  victories  of  Marlborough.  The  popularity  of  the 
war,  the  influence  of  the  ministers,  who  leaned  more  and  more 
to  the  Whig  side,  and  the  division  of  the  Tories,  together 
produced  another  great  revulsion  of  power,  and  at  the  election 
of  1705  a  large  Whig  majority  was  returned  to  Parliament. 

The  Government  was  still  in  a  great  degree  Tory.  Harley, 
one  of  the  most  sagacious  leaders,  and  St.  John,  the  most  brilliant 
orator  of  the  party,  had  been  appointed,  the  first.  Secretary  of 
State,  and  the  second,  Secretary  of  War,  at  the  time  of  the  dis- 
missal of  Nottingham.  The  Whig  leaders  were  still  out  of  office, 
though  several  less  prominent  members  of  the  party  were  incor- 
porated in  the  ministry.  Prior  to  the  general  election,  the  Privy 
Seal  had  been  taken  from  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  was 
conspicuous  among  the  Tories,  and  given  to  the  Whig  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  and  Walpole  obtained  a  subordinate  office  in  the 
Admiralty.  The  election  of  1705  naturally  aided  the  trans- 
formation, and  »by  the  Marlborough  influence  the  Queen  was 
very  reluctantly  induced  to  take  a  step  which  gave  a  decisive 
ascendancy  to  the  Whig  element  in  the  Cabinet.      The  Tory 

1  Oldmixon,  p.  380. 


42  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  i. 

Chancellor  Wright,  who  had  been  appointed  at  the  dismissal  of 
Somers  in  1700,  was  turned  out  of  an  office  for  which  he  was 
notoriously  unfit,  and  the  place  was  given  to  Cowper,  one  of 
the  most  eminent  of  the  Whigs.  The  Tory  party,  exasperated 
with  the  Queen  for  yielding  to  the  pressure,  brought  in  a  motion 
wholly  repugnant  to  their  ordinary  politics,  and  intended  chiefly 
to  be  personally  offensive  to  the  sovereign,  petitioning  her  to 
invite  over  the  Electress  Sophia,  the  heir  presumptive,  to 
reside  in  the  country.  It  was,  of  course,  defeated,  but  it  served 
to  shake  the  sympathies  of  the  Queen,  and  the  Whigs  availed 
themselves  skilfully  of  the  occasion  to  carry  a  regency  bill, 
still  further  strengthening  that  Hanoverian  succession  for  which 
their  rivals  had  very  little  real  predilection.  It  provided  that, 
on  the  death  of  the  reigning  sovereign,  the  government  should 
pass  into  the  hands  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  Lord  Keeper,  Lord  Treasurer,  Lord  President,  Lord 
Privy  Seal,  Lord  High  Admiral,  and  the  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Queen's  Bench,  for  the  time  being ;  that  with  them  should  be 
joined  a  list  of  persons  named  by  the  successor  to  the  throne, 
in  a  sealed  paper,  of  which  three  copies  were  to  be  previously 
sent  to  England ;  one  to  be  deposited  with  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  another  with  the  I^ord  Keeper,  a  third  with  his 
own  minister  residing  in  England ;  and  that  Parliament  was  to 
be  immediately  convoked  and  empowered  to  sit  for  six  months. 
At  the  same  time,  in  order  if  possible  to  allay  the  ecclesiastical 
outcry,  resolutions  were  carried  in  both  Houses  affirming  that 
whoever  asserted  or  insinuated  that  the  Church  was  in  danger 
was  an  enemy  to  the  Queen  and  to  the  kingdom. 

The  ministry  of  Godolphin  and  Marlborough  lasted  till 
1710,  and  it  was  one  of  the  most  glorious  in  English  history. 
It  was  rendered  illustrious  by  the  great  victories  of  Blenheim, 
Eamillies,  Oudenarde,  Malplaquet,  and  Saragossa ;  by  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  French  from  Flanders  and  from  Germany ;  by 
the  brilliant  though  somewhat  barren  achievements  of  Peter- 
borough in  Spain ;  by  the  capture  of  Gibraltar  by  Eooke,  and 
of  Minorca  by  Stanhope  ;  by  the  defeat  of  the  combined  efforts 


CH.  I.  EXHAUSTION   OF   FRANCE.  43 

of  the  French  and  Spaniards  to  retake  the  former ;  by  the  sac- 
cessful  accomplishment  of  the  union  with  Scotland ;  by  the 
complete  failure  of  the  French  attempt  to  invade  Scotland  in 
1708.  It  was,  however,  chequered  by  more  than  one  serious 
calamity.  The  allies  were  expelled  from  Castille,  and  defeated 
in  the  great  battle  of  Almanza.  The  siege  of  Toulon  was  un- 
successful ;  the  English  plantations  in  St.  Christopher  were 
ruined  ;  a  considerable  part  of  the  British  navy  was  destroyed 
in  the  great  storm  of  1703  ;  the  great  admiral  Sir  Cloudesley 
Shovel  perished  ingloriously  in  a  shipwreck  oiSf  the  Scilly  Isles 
in  1707.  In  Italy  and  Spain  the  fortune  of  arms  violently  fluc- 
tuated, and  the  natural  consummation  of  the  war  was  growing 
more  and  more  evident.  The  passionate  attachment  dis- 
played by  all  the  Spaniards  except  the  Catalans  for  the  cause  of 
Philip  plainly  showed  how  impossible  was  the  scheme  of  the 
allies  to  place,  or  at  least  permanently  to  maintain,  an  Austrian 
prince  on  the  Spanish  throne.  On  the  other  hand,  the  dismem- 
berment of  the  Spanish  dominions  was  already  accomplished 
in  Italy,  for  the  French  had  been  driven  completely  from  the 
territory  of  Milan,  and  the  Austrians  had  conquered  the  whole 
kingdom  of  Naples.  France,  though  making  heroic  efforts 
against  her  enemies,  was  reduced  to  the  lowest  depths  of  ex- 
haustion. The  distress  of  many  years  of  desperate  warfare, 
aggravated  by  the  financial  incapacity  of  Chamillart,  and  still 
more  by  the  persecution  of  the  Protestants,  which  had  driven  a 
vast  part  of  her  capital  and  commercial  energy  to  other  lands,  had 
at  length  broken  that  proud  spirit  which  aimed  at  nothing  short 
of  complete  ascendancy  in  Europe.  If  England  desired  no  other 
objects  than  those  which  were  assigned  in  the  treaty  of  alliance  ; 
if  she  wished  only  to  secure  an  adequate  barrier  for  Holland,  and 
'  a  reasonable  satisfaction '  for  the  Emperor  by  obtaining  for  him 
the  Spanish  dominions  in  Italy,  there  was  absolutely  no  obstacle 
to  the  establishment  of  peace.  The  Government,  however,  had 
gradually  undergone  a  complete  change.  Unity  of  action  and 
energy  was  especially  needed  for  a  ministry  conducting  a  gi-eat 
war.     Many  leading  Tories  who  had  been  expelled  from  it  were 


44  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  i. 

now  in  opposition,  and  were  suspected  of  holding  communica- 
tions with  those  who  remained.  The  Whig  party  were  in  the 
ascendant  in  the  House  of  Commons  after  the  election  of  1705, 
and  in  the  Cabinet  after  the  appointment  of  Cowper,  and 
they  put  a  constant  pressure  upon  the  Queen  and  upon  the 
ministry.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  system  of  a  divided 
cabinet  became  completely  untenable,  though  both  the  Queen 
and  Godolphin  clung  tenaciously  to  it,  and  the  remnants  of  Tory 
influence  were  gradually  extruded.  Sunderland,  the  son-in-law 
of  JNIarlborough,  and  one  of  the  most  violent  of  the  Whigs,  was 
introduced  into  the  Cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State  in  1707.  In 
1 708  Harley,  who  had  for  some  time  been  acquiring  the  fore- 
most place  in  the  confidence  of  the  Queen,  was  driven  from 
office.  It  was  known  or  suspected  that  he  was  busily  in- 
triguing against  his  colleagues,  and  especially  against  Godolphin, 
and  he  desired  to  strengthen  the  Tory  and  Church  element  in 
the  ministry.  The  course  of  events,  however,  was  evidently 
running  counter  to  his  policy ;  and  a  recent  incident  had  in- 
volved him  in  much  suspicion  and  obloquy.  A  clerk  in  his 
office,  named  Gregg,  was  found  to  have  despatched  copies  of 
important  state  papers  to  the  French.  Gregg  underwent  a 
searching  examination  before  the  Privy  Council,  and  afterwards 
before  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  ;  pleaded  guilty  at 
the  Old  Bailey,  and  was  sentenced  to  be  hung,  but  his  execu- 
tion was  respited  for  nearly  three  months,  in  hopes  of  extorting 
from  him  a  confession  implicating  Harley.  Nothing,  however, 
except  great  carelessness  was  proved  against  the  minister,  and 
Gregg  before  execution  solemnly  exculpated  him  from  all  par- 
ticipation in  the  crime.  Still  the  circumstance  weakened  his 
position.  Marlborough  and  Godolphin  insisted  on  his  dis- 
missal, and  the  Queen  having  refused,  they  tendered  their 
resignations.  The  Queen,  who  is  said  to  have  regarded  that  of 
Godolphin  with  great  equanimity,  though  she  felt  that  the  re- 
tirement of  Marlborough  in  the  midst  of  the  war  would  have 
been  a  national  calamity,  procrastinated,  and  showed  much  dis- 
position to  enter  into  a  hopeless  struggle,  but  the  prudence  of 


CH.  I.  EXPULSION   OF  TOEIES  FEOM  THE  MINISTRY.  45 

Harley  averted  it.  He  retired  from  office,  and  was  accompanied 
by  St.  John,  the  Secretary  of  War ;  by  the  Attorney-General, 
Sir  Simon  Harcourt,  who  was  the  most  eminent  of  the  Tory 
lawyers ;  and  by  Sir  Thomas  Mansell,  Comptroller  of  the  House- 
hold. The  position  of  Attorney-General  remained  for  some  time 
vacant,  but  the  others  were  filled  with  Whigs  ;  and  it  was  at  this 
time  that  Walpole  attained  the  dignity  of  Secretary  of  War. 

One  more  step  remained  to  be  accomplished.  A  well- 
planned  Jacobite  expedition,  intended  to  raise  Scotland,  which 
was  then  bitterly  exasperated  by  the  Union,  was  despatched 
from  Dunkirk  in  the  March  of  1708.  4,000  French  troops 
were  on  board ;  and,  as  Scotland  was  at  this  time  generally  dis- 
affected, and  as  it  was  almost  denuded  of  troops,  the  hopes  of 
the  French  ministers  were  very  sanguine.  The  vigilance  of 
the  Government,  however,  discovered  the  secret ;  and  when  the 
expedition  was  already  in  sight  of  Scotland  it  was  attacked  by 
an  overwhelming  fleet  under  Byng,  put  to  flight,  and,  witli 
the  loss  of  one  ship,  driven  to  France.  This  expedition  aroused 
a  strong  resentment  in  England,  which  was  very  favourable  to 
the  Whigs  ;  and  the  energy  shown  by  the  Government  also 
tended  to  strengthen  its  position.  The  election  of  1708  im- 
mediately followed,  and  it  resulted  in  another  large  Whig 
majority.  The  party  was  now  too  strong,  not  only  for  the 
Queen,  but  also  for  Godolphin  himself,  who  desired  to  temporise, 
and,  at  least,  to  exclude  the  great  Whig  leaders  from  power. 
In  a  few  months  the  revolution,  which  had  long  been  in  pro- 
gress, was  completed.  On  tlie  death  of  the  Prince  Consort  in 
the  October  of  this  year,  Lord  Pembroke  who  was  both  President 
of  the  Council  and  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland  was  removed  to 
the  vacant  place  at  the  head  of  the  Admiralty,  and  the  Queen 
was  compelled  to  admit  Somers  into  the  Government  as  Pre- 
sident of  the  Council;  to  make  ^^^larton  Lord-Lieutenant  of 
Ireland,  where  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  rapacity  and 
his  oppression,  and  soon  after  on  the  resignation  of  Pembroke 
to  place  Orford  at  the  head  of  the  Admiralty.  The  Chm-ch 
party,  being  now  wholly  in  opposition,  and  the  Nonconformifits 


46  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

wholly  on  the  Ministerial  side,  a  corresponding  change  was 
shown  in  the  spirit  of  legislation.  The  Occasional  Conformity- 
Act  now  entirely  disappeared.  The  Scotch  Union  of  1707, 
which  was  the  most  important  domestic  measure  of  this  period, 
and  which  will  be  more  fully  considered  in  another  chapter,  was 
carried  in  a  spirit  very  favourable  to  the  Kirk,  and  the  same 
spirit  was  still  more  strongly  shown  by  a  measure  carried  in 
1709  for  naturalising  all  foreign  Protestants  who  settled  in 
England.  In  the  same  year  the  Jacobite  cause  was  seriously 
injured  by  an  Act  extending  the  English  law  of  treason  to 
Scotland ;  but  the  Grovernment  at  the  same  time  passed  an 
act  of  grace  granting  an  indemnity  for  all  past  treasons,  with 
certain  specified  exceptions.  Marlborough  and  Godolphin,  who 
had  both  corresponded  with  the  Pretender,  and  who  must  have 
seen  with  some  apprehension  the  advent  of  the  most  uncompro- 
mising Whigs  to  power,  secured  themselves,  by  this  measure, 
against  the  very  possible  hostility  of  their  present  allies. 

In  tlie  meantime  the  Queen  was  completely  alienated  from 
her  ministers.  Her  ideal  was  a  Government  in  which  neither 
Whigs  nor  Tories  possessed  a  complete  ascendancy  ;  but  above 
all  things,  she  dreaded  and  hated  a  supremacy  of  the  Whigs. 
She  had  the  strongest  conviction  that  they  were  the  enemies 
of  her  prerogative,  and  still  more  the  enemies  of  the  Church  ; 
and  a  long  series  of  particular  incidents  had  contributed  to 
intensify  her  feelings.^  She  remembered  with  indignation  the 
treatment  she  had  received  from  William  in  the  latter  part  of 
his  life,  and  with  gratitude  the  support  the  Tories  had  given 
her  in  the  matter  of  her  settlement.  A  bill  granting  her  hus- 
band the  enormous  income  of  100,000L  a  year  in  the  event  of 
his  surviving  her,  had  been  introduced  by  the  Tories  in  1702, 
and  had  been  carried  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  some  con- 
spicuous Whigs.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Whigs  had  repeatedly 
assailed  the  maladministration  of  the  Prince,  and  a  desire  to 

'  See  he  remarkable  letter  (Oct.  138-140.  This  book  contains  much 
24,  1702),  in  the  Accoimt  of  the  Con-  curious  evidence  of  the  sentiments  of 
ductof  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,^^.      the  Queen. 


CH.  I.        THE  QUEEN   ALIENATED  FROM   HER   MINISTERS.  47 

avert  a  threatened  and  most  ungenerous  attack  uj^on  bim  when 
he  was  on  his  death-Led  was  the  chief  motive  which  at  last 
induced  her  to  admit  Somers  to  the  Cabinet.*  All  the  great 
Whig  appointments  after  1705  were  wrung  from  her  almost  by 
force,  and  caused  her  the  deepest  and  most  heartfelt  anguish. 
The  tie  of  warm  personal  friendship  which  had  long  bound  her 
to  the  wife  of  Marlborough  was  at  length  cut.  The  furious, 
domineering,  and  insolent  temper  of  the  Duchess  at  last  wore 
out  a  patience  and  an  affection  of  no  common  strength ;  and 
Abigail  Hill,  who  as  Mrs.  Masham  played  so  great  a  part  during 
the  remainder  of  the  reign,  rose  rapidly  into  favour.  She  was 
lady  of  the  bedchamber,  and  was  cousin  to  the  Duchess  of 
Marlborough,  to  whom  she  owed  her  position  at  Court ;  but 
her  influence  over  the  Queen  appears  to  have  been  due  to  her 
sweet  and  compliant  temper ;  and  she  soon  formed  a  close 
alliance  with  Harley,  and  aided  powerfully  in  the  overthrow  of 
the  ministry.  As  early  as  1707  the  presence  of  a  new  Court 
influence  was  felt,  and  the  Queen  had  marked  her  feelings  to 
her  servants  by  appointing  two  High  Church  bishops  without 
even  announcing  her  intention  to  the  Cabinet. 

The  effect  of  these  events  upon  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
Government  was  very  pernicious.  The  question  of  the  Pro- 
testant succession,  which  might  have  rallied  the  country 
around  the  Whigs,  was  now  in  abeyance.  The  Church  party, 
which  in  peaceful  times  was  naturally  by  far  the  strongest  in 
England,  was  in  violent  hostility  to  the  Government,  and  it 
became  more  and  more  evident  that  in  the  moment  of  crisis, 


'  Coxe's    Marlborough,    ch.  Ixxv,  of  the  Queen  is  very  striking.    Her 

Pari.    Hist.    vi.    602-603,    619-662.  husband,  to  whom  she  was  passionately 

According  to  the  Hamilton  papers  the  attached,  died  on  Oct.  28,  1708.     On 

change  was  accelerated  by  a  discovery  Jan.     28,     following,    both     Houses 

which  Wharton  had  made  of   some  presented  an   address   to   her,  '  that 

earlier  negotiations  of  Godolphin  with  she  would  not  sulfer  her  just  grief 

the  Pretender.    See  a  note  in  Burnet,  so  far  to  prevail,  but  would  have  such 

ii.  516.   It  is  obvious  that  the  balance  indulgence  to  the  hearty  desires  of 

of  power   inclined   so   much  to  the  her  subjects  as  to  entertain  thoughts 

Whigs  that  the  speedy  admission  of  of  a  second  marriage.' — Pari.  Hist.  \\, 

their  leaders  to  ofiice  was  inevitable.  777. 
The  disregard  shown  for  the  feelings 


48  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  r. 

the  influence  of  the  Queen  would  be  on  the  same  side.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  Whig  leaders  perceived  clearly  that 
their  main  party  interest  was  to  prevent  the  termination  of  the 
war.  As  long  as  it  continued,  Marlborough,  who  was  now  com- 
pletely identified  with  them,  could  scarcely  fail  to  be  at  the 
head  of  affairs,  and  the  brilliancy  of  his  victories  had  given  the 
party  a  transient  and  abnormal  popularity.  In  1706  Lewis, 
being  thoroughly  depressed,  opened  a  negotiation  with  the 
Dutch,  and  offered  peace  to  the  allies  on  terms  which  would 
have  abundantly  fulfilled  every  legitimate  end  of  the  war.  The 
battle  of  Eamillies  had  utterly  ruined  the  French  cause  in  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  and  had  been  followed  by  the  loss  of 
Louvain,  Brussels,  Ghent,  Bruges,  Antwerp,  Menin,  and  other 
places.  In  Spain  the  victory  was  for  the  time  no  less  complete. 
Philip  had  been  compelled  to  abandon  the  siege  of  Barcelona, 
and  to  take  refuge  in  France,  and  the  allies,  after  a  long  series 
of  successes,  had  occupied  Madrid,  where  they  proclaimed  his 
rival,  king.  In  Italy,  however,  Philip  was  still  powerful ;  his 
cause  had  been  of  late  almost  uniformly  successful,  and  although, 
with  the  victory  of  Eugene  over  Marsin  before  Turin,  the  tide 
had  begun  to  turn,  yet  the  kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies  was 
still  in  his  complete  possession.  Under  these  circumstances 
the  French  king  proposed  that  Philip  should  relinquish  all 
claim  to  the  Spanish  throne,  that  he  should  be  compensated 
out  of  the  Spanish  dominions  in  Italy  by  a  separate  kingdom 
consisting  of  the  Milanese  territory,  of  Naples,  and  of  Sicily, 
that  the  strong  places  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  should  be 
all  ceded  as  a  barrier  to  Holland,  and  that  important  com- 
mercial privileges  should  be  granted  to  the  maritime  powers. 
Something  might,  no  doubt,  be  said  about  the  cession  of  the 
Milanese,  which  would  endanger  the  territory  of  the  Duke  of 
Savoy,  but  this  question  of  detail  could  easily  have  been 
arranged,  for  Lewis  showed  himself  quite  prepared  in  the  sub- 
sequent negotiations  to  restrict  the  kingdom  he  desired  for  his 
grandson  to  Naples,  Sicily,  and  Sardinia,  with  a  small  part  of 
Tuscany,  to  Naples  and  Sicily,  or,  if  absolutely  necessary,  to 


CH.  1.  PEACE   NEGOTIATIONS    IN   1 706.  49 

Sicily  alone.  By  the  proposition  of  France  the  union  of  the 
crowns  of  France  and  Spain  would  have  been  effectually  pre- 
vented. The  division  of  the  Spanish  dominions  would  have 
fully  realised  the  object  of  the  treaties  of  partition,  and  the 
great  danger  arising  to  Europe  from  the  weakness  of  Holland 
would  have  been  as  far  as  possible  removed.  The  Emperor, 
however,  claimed  for  the  Archduke  the  whole  Spanish 
succession,  and  this  claim,  which,  if  realised,  would  have 
created  in  Europe  a  supremacy  for  the  House  of  Austria, 
hardly  less  dangerous  than  that  which  Lewis  desired  for  France, 
was  so  strenuously  supported  by  the  Whig  ministers  of  England 
that  they  made  the  cession  of  all  the  Spanish  dominions  to 
the  Austrian  Prince  an  essential  preliminary  to  the  peace-  No 
such  condition  had  been  laid  down  by  William  in  the  treaty  of 
alliance,  but  in  1707  Somers  induced  both  Houses  of  Parliament 
to  carry  resolutions  to  the  effect  that  no  peace  could  be  safe  or 
honourable  if  Spain,  the  West  Indies,  or  any  part  of  the  Spanish 
monarchy  were  suffered  to  remain  under  the  House  of  Bourbon. 
'  I  am  fully  of  your  opinion,'  said  the  Queen,  in  replying  to 
the  address,  '  that  no  peace  can  be  honourable  or  safe  for  us  or 
our  allies  till  the  entire  monarchy  of  Spain  be  restored  to  the 
House  of  Austria.' '  A  year  later  the  House  of  Lords  again 
pledged  itself  by  an  address  to  the  same  policy. 

The  danger  and  the  impolicy  of  such  pledges  were  very 
clearly  shown  by  the  event.  Had  the  peace  been  made  in  1706 
instead  of  1713,  more  than  thirty  millions  of  English  money 
as  well  as  innumerable  English  lives  would  have  been  saved, 
and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  party  interest  of  the 
Whig  ministers  was  a  main  cause  of  the  failure  of  the  negotia- 
tion. Still  more  indefensible  was  their  conduct  in  1709.  The 
years  that  had  elapsed  since  the  previous  negotiation,  though 
very  chequered,  had,  on  the  whole,  been  disastrous  to  France. 
The  allies  had,  it  is  true,  been  compelled  to  raise  the  siege 
of  Toulon,   and   in   the  beginning   of  1708   the   French  had 

'  Pari.  Hist.  vi.  609-610.     See  too  Marlborough's  Letters  in  Coxa,  ch.  1. 
VOL.  I.  5 


50  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  i. 

retaken  some  of  the  towns  they  had  lost  in  Flanders,  but  the 
battle  of  Oudenarde  speedily  ruined  all  their  hopes  in  that 
quarter,  and  Mons,  Nieuport,  and  Luxembourg  were  soon  the 
only  towns  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  which  were  not  in  the 
liands  of  the  allies.  The  English  had  taken  Port  Mahon  and 
Sardinia;  the  Duke  of  Savoy  had  taken  Esilles  and  Fenes- 
trelles,  and  a  succession  of  Austrian  victories  had  driven  the 
French  out  of  Lombardy  and  out  of  Naples.  In  Spain,  how- 
ever, a  brilliant  gleam  of  success  had  lit  up  the  fallen  fortunes 
of  Lewis.  In  the  great  battle  of  Almanza  the  allies  were 
utterly  defeated  by  Berwick,  and  all  Spain,  except  Catalonia, 
was  again  under  the  sceptre  of  Philip.  The  position  of  France 
itself,  however,  was  most  deplorable.  Lewis,  who  in  the 
beginning  of  the  war  had  given  his  orders  on  the  banks  of  the 
Danube,  the  Po,  and  the  Tagus,  was  now  reduced  to  such  straits 
that  it  was  doubtful  whether  he  could  long  be  secure  in  his 
capital.  To  the  ruin  of  the  finances,  the  frightful  drain  of 
men,  the  despondency  produced  by  a  long  train  of  crushing 
calamities  in  the  field,  were  now  added  the  horrors  of  famine. 
A  winter  of  almost  unparalleled  severity  had  ruined  the  olives 
and  a  great  proportion  of  the  vineyards  throughout  France ; 
the  corn  crops  were  everywhere  deficient,  and  the  people  were 
reduced  to  the  most  abject  wretchedness.  Even  in  Paris, 
though  every  effort  was  made  to  produce  an  artificial  plenty  at 
the  expense  of  the  provinces,  it  was  noticed  that  in  1709  the 
death-rate  was  nearly  double  the  average,  while  the  decrease 
in  the  average  of  births  and  marriages  amounted  to  one 
quarter.^  Under  these  circumstances  Lewis,  resolving  on  peace 
at  any  price,  submitted  to  the  allies  the  most  humiliating 
offers  ever  made  by  a  French  king.  He  consented,  after  a  long 
and  painful  struggle,  to  abandon  the  whole  of  the  Spanish 
dominions  to  the  Austrian  Prince  without  any  compensation 
whatever,  to  yield  Strasburg,  Brisach,  and  Luxembourg  to  the 

'  St.    Simon's     Memoirx.     Torcy's       the  French  distress  at  this  period.  See 
Memoirs.    M.  Martin  in  his  Hist,  de      too  Cooke's  Hist,  of  Parties,  i.  573. 
France  has  collected  much  evidence  of 


CH.  I.  PEACE  NEGOTIATIONS  IN    1709.  61 

Emperor,  to  yield  ten  fortresses  as  a  barrier  to  the  Dutch,  includ- 
ing Lille  and  Tournay,  which  were  justly  regarded  as  essential 
to  the  security  of  France,  to  yield  Exilles  and  Fenestrelles  to 
the  Duke  of  Savoy,  to  recognise  the  titles  of  the  Queen  of  Eng- 
land, of  the  King  of  Prussia,  and  of  the  Elector  of  Hanover,  to 
expel  the  Pretender  from  his  dominions,  to  destroy  the  fortifica- 
tions and  harbour  of  Dunkirk,  and  to  restore  Newfoundland  to 
England.  All  these  concessions,  together  with  considerable 
commercial  advantages  to  the  maritime  powers,  were  offered 
by  France  without  any  compensation  whatever  except  the  peace, 
and  they  were  all  found  to  be  insufficient.  By  a  provision  as 
impolitic  as  it  was  barbarous — for  it  once  more  kindled  the 
flagging  enthusiasm  of  the  French  into  a  flame — it  was  insisted, 
as  a  preliminary  to  the  peace,  that  Lewis  should  join  with  the 
allies  in  expelling,  if  necessary,  by  force  of  arms,  his  grandson 
from  Spain,  that  this  task  must  be  accomplished  within  two 
months,  that  if  it  was  not  accomplished  within  that  time  the 
war  should  begin  anew,  but  that  in  the  meantime  the  fortifica- 
tions of  Dunkirk  should  be  demolished,  and  all  the  strong 
places  mentioned  in  the  treaty  which  were  still  in  French 
hands  should  be  ceded,  so  that  at  the  expiration  of  what  might 
be  merely  a  truce  of  two  months,  France  should  be  helpless 
before  her  enemies.^ 

There  are  few  instances  in  modern  history  of  a  more  scan- 
dalous abuse  of  the  rights  of  conquest  than  this  transaction.  It 
may  be  in  part  explained  by  the  ambition  of  the  Emperor, 
who  desired  a  complete  ascendancy  in  Europe  ;  and  in  part 
also  by  the  excessive  demands  and  animosity  of  the  Dutch,  who 
remembered  the  unprovoked  invasion  of  their  country  in  1670, 
•and  the  almost  insane  arrogance  with  which  Louvois  had  threat- 
ened their  ambassador  -^ith  the  Bastille.  The  prolongation  of  the 
war,  however,  would  have  been  impossible  but  for  the  policy  of 
the  Whig  ministers,  who  supported  the  most  extravagant  claims  of 
their  allies.     Marlborough  himself  went  over  to  the  Hague,  and 

■ '  Torcy's   Memoirs.      Coxe's  Life  of  Marlborough.     Burnet's  Own  Times, 
Martin,  Hist,  de  Fraiwe,  torn.  xiv. 


52  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

the  French  endeavoured  to  bribe  him  by  graduated  oflfers, 
ranging  from  two  to  four  millions  of  livres,  in  case  he  could 
obtain  for  Philip  a  compensation  in  Italy,  and  for  France 
Strasburg  and  Landau  and  the  integrity  of  Dunkii'k,  or  at 
least  some  part  of  these  boons.^  The  offer  was  unavailing  ;  no 
one  of  these  several  advantages  was  conceded,  and  Marlborough 
steadily  opposed  the  peace.  His  conduct  was  very  naturally 
ascribed  to  his  interest  as  a  general  and  a  politician  in  the 
continuance  of  the  war,  but  his  private  correspondence  shows 
the  imputation  to  be  imfounded.  It  appears  from  his  letters  to 
his  wife  that  he,  at  this  time,  earnestly  desired  repose,  that  he 
considered  the  demands  of  the  allies,  in  more  than  one  respect, 
excessive,  and  that  the  chief  blame  of  the  feilure  rests  upon  his 
colleagues.  He  took,  however^  about  this  time,  a  step  which 
greatly  injm-ed  him  with  the  country.  It  was  evident  that 
his  position  was  very  precarious.  The  old  affection  of  the 
Queen  for  his  wife,  which  had  been  the  firm  basis  of  his 
power,  was  gone.  The  war,  which  made  him  necessary,  could 
hardly  be  greatly  protracted.  Godolphin,  who  of  all  statesmen 
was  most  closely  allied  with  him,  was  evidently  declining.  The 
Tories  and  Jacobites  could  never  forgive  the  part  which  Marl- 
borough had  taken  in  the  Revolution,  and  since  the  accession  of 
Anne ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  tried  to  secure  himself 
from  possible  ruin  by  more  than  one  Jacobite  intrigue,  and  his 
conversion  to  Whiggism  was  too  recent  and  too  partial  to  en- 
able him  to  win  the  confidence  of  the  uncompromising  Whigs 
who  had  now  risen  to  power.  It  must  be  added,  that  he  had 
recently  undergone  a  very  serious  disappointment.  In  1706, 
when  the  battle  of  Eamillies  had  driven  the  French  out  of  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  the  Emperor,  ^filling  up  a  blank  form 
which  had  been  given  him  by  his  brother,  conferred  upon  Marl- 
borough the  governorship  of  that  province.  It  was  a  post  of 
much  dignity ,  and  power,  and  of  very  great  emolument,  and 
Marlborough  earnestly  desired  to  accept  it.     The  Queen  at  this 

'  See    the  curious  letter  of    Lewis   authorising  these  offers.  —  Torcy's 
Idemoirs. 


cH.  I.  maelborough's  request.  53 

time  cordially  approved  of  the  appointment ;  the  ministers 
supported  it ;  and  Somers,  who  was  the  most  important  Whig 
outside  the  ministry,  expressed  a  strong  opinion  in  its  favour. 
But  in  Holland  it  excited  the  most  violent  opposition.  The 
Dutch  desired  that  no  step  should  be  taken  conferring  the 
province  definitely  upon  the  Austrian  claimant  till  the  question 
of  the  barrier  had  been  settled.  They  hoped  that  some  of  the 
towns  would  pass  under  their  undivided  dominion,  and  that  the 
system  of  government  would  be  such  as  to  give  them  a  com- 
plete ascendancy  in  the  rest ;  and  the  danger  of  breaking  up 
the  alliance  was  so  great  that  Marlborough  at  once  gracefully 
declined  the  offer.  It  was  renewed  by  Charles  himself  in  1708, 
after  the  battle  of  Oudenarde,  in  terms  of  the  most  flattering 
description,  but  was  again,  on  public  grounds,  declined.  Under 
these  circumstances,  Marlborough  considered  himself  justified, 
in  1709,  in  taking  the  startling  step  of  asking  the  position  of 
Captain-General  for  life.  It  is  possible,  and  by  no  means  im- 
probable, that  his  motive  was  mainly  to  secure  himself  from 
disgrace,  and  to  disentangle  himself  from  party  politics.  In 
his  most  confidential  letters  he  frequently  speaks  of  his  longing 
for  repose,  of  his  weariness  of  those  personal  and  political  in- 
trigues which  had  so  often  paralysed  his  military  enterprise, 
of  his  sense  of  the  growing  infirmities  of  age.  The  position 
of  commander-in-chief  for  life  would  at  once  free  him  from 
political  apprehensions  and  embarrassments,  and  enable  him 
to  restrict  himself  to  that  department  in  which  he  had  no 
rival.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  his  object  was  ambition,  it  is 
plain  that  the  position  to  Which  he  aspired  would  give  him  a 
power  of  the  most  formidable  kind.  Cautious,  reticent,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  in  the  highest  degree  sagacious  and  courageous, 
he  had  ever  shrunk  from  identifying  himself  absolutely  with 
either  side,  and  it  had  been  his  aim  to  hold  the  balance  between 
parties  and  dynasties,  to  dictate  conditions,  to  watch  oppor- 
tunities. A  general  who  was  the  idol  of  his  troops,  who 
possessed  to  the  highest  degree  every  military  acquirement, 
and  who,  at  the  same  time,  held  his  command  independently  of 


54  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i 

the  ministers  and  even  of  the  Crown,  might  easily,  in  a  divided 
nation  and  in  the  crisis  of  a  disputed  succession,  determine  the 
whole  coiu-se  of  affairs.  Had  the  request  been  made  soon  after 
the  battle  of  Blenheim,  it  is  not  impossible  that  it  might  have 
been  conceded,  but  the  time  for  making  it  had  passed.  The 
Chancellor  Cowper,  on  being  apprised  of  it,  coldly  answered 
that  it  was  wholly  unprecedented.  The  Queen,  to  the  great 
indignation  of  Marlborough,  absolutely  refused  it ;  when  the 
transaction  was  divulged,  the  nation,  which  had  at  least  learnt 
fi-om  Cromwell  a  deep  and  lasting  hatred  of  military  de- 
spotism, placed  upon  it  the  worst  construction,  and  it  con- 
tributed much  to  the  unpopularity  of  the  Whigs. 

Besides  this  cause  of  division  and  discontent,  some  murmurs 
arose  at  the  reckless  prolongation  of  a  war  which  produced  much 
distress  among  the  poor  ;  but  on  the  whole  they  were  not  very 
serious,  and  the  approaching  downfall  of  the  ministers  was  mainly 
due  to  the  alienation  of  the  Queen  and  to  the  opposition  of  the 
Church.  For  some  time  the  controversy  about  the  doctrine  of 
non-resistance  had  been  raging  with  increased  intensity,  and 
there  were  many  evident  signs  that  the  Church  opposition, 
which  had  been  thrown  into  the  shade  by  the  glories  of  Blen- 
heim, was  acquiring  new  strength.  A  sermon  preached  by 
Hoadly  against  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience,  in  1705,  was 
solemnly  condemned  by  the  Lower  House  of  Convocation. 
Blackball,  one  of  the  bishops  appointed  by  Anne  without  con- 
sultation with  her  ministers,  being  called  upon  to  preach  before 
the  Queen  shortly  after  his  consecration,  availed  himself  of  the 
occasion  to  assert  the  Tory  doctrine  of  non-resistance  in  its 
extreme  form ;  and  the  sermon,  which  was  in  fact  a  con- 
demnation of  the  Eevolution,  was  published  without  any  sign 
of  royal  disapprobation.  The  Scotch  Union  was  violently  de- 
nounced as  introducing  Presbyterians  into  Parliament,  recog- 
nising by  a  great  national  act  the  non-Episcopal  Establishment 
of  Scotland,  and  providing  a  powerful  ally  for  the  enemies  of 
the  Church.  The  Act  for  naturalising  foreign  Protestants  was 
even  more  unpopular.     It  was  certain  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the 


CH.  I.  SERMONS   OF  SACHEVERELL.  55 

Nonconformists.  It  excited  all  the  English  animosity  against 
foreigners ;  and  soon  after  it  had  passed,  more  than  6,000 
Germans,  from  the  Palatinate,  came  over  in  a  state  of  extreme 
destitution  at  a  time  when  a  period  of  great  distress  was  already 
taxing  to  the  utmost  the  benevolence  of  the  rich.  Nearly  at 
the  same  time  too,  the  Church  acquired  a  considerable  acces- 
sion, not  indeed  in  numbers,  but  in  moral  force,  by  the  partial 
extinction  of  the  non-juror  schism.  Ken  had  resigned  his 
pretensions  to  his  bishopric.  Lloyd,  the  deposed  bishop  of 
Norwich,  died  on  January  1,  1709-10,  and  there  remained  no 
other  of  tlie  prelates  who  had  been  deprived  by  William.  One 
section  of  the  non-jurors,  it  is  true,  took  measures  to  per- 
petuate the  division,  but  Dodwell,  Nelson,  Brokesby,  and 
some  others  reverted  to  the  Church.^  The  language  of  the 
clergy  became  continually  more  aggressive.  The  pulpits  rang 
with  declamations  about  the  danger  of  the  Church,  with  in- 
vectives against  Nonconformists,  with  covert  attacks  upon  the 
ministers.  The  train  was  fully  laid ;  the  impeachment  of 
Sacheverell  produced  the  explosion  that  shattered  the  Whig 
ministry  of  Anne. 

The  circumstances  of  that  singular  outbreak  of  Church 
fanaticism  are  well  known.  The  hero  of  the  drama  was  fellow 
of  Magdalen  College  and  rector  of  St.  Saviour,  Southwark ;  and, 
though  himself  the  grandson  of  a  dissenting  minister  who  soon 
after  the  Kestoration  had  suffered  an  imprisonment  of  three 
years  for  officiating  in  a  conventicle,^  he  had  been  for  some 
time  a  conspicuous  preacher  and  an  occasional  writer^  in  the 
High  Church  ranks.  It  was  alleged  by  his  opponents,  and, 
after  the  excitement  of  the  contest  had  passed,  it  was  hardly 
denied  by  his  friends,  that  he  was  an  insolent  and  hot-headed 
man,  without  learning,  literary  ability,   or  real  piety ;  distin- 

'  See  Lathbury's  Hisi:.  of  the  Xoii-  produced  Defoe's  Slim'iest  Way  n-it/t 

juroi's  and  Hist,  of  Convocation,  the   Dissenters,  an  assize  sermon  at 

2  Tindal.  Oxford,  preached  in  1704,  and  two 

'  He   had  published  A   Fast-day  pamphlets    called     Political    Union, 

Sermon,  preached  at  Oxford  in  1702,  and  The  Eights  of  the  Cliurch  of  Eng- 

which  was  one   of  the  works  that  land. 


56  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

guished  chiefly  by  his  striking  person  and  good  delivery,  and 
by  his  scurrilous  abuse  of  Dissenters  and  Whigs.  Of  the  two 
sermons  that  came  under  the  consideration  of  Parliament,  the 
first  was  preached  at  the  Assizes  of  Derby,  and  was  published 
with  a  dedication  to  the  high  sheriff  and  jury,  deploring  the 
dangers  that  menaced  the  Church  and  the  betrayal  of  its  '  prin- 
ciples, interests,  and  constitution.'  The  second  and  more 
famous  one,  '  On  tlie  perils  from  false  brethren,'  was  preached 
on  November  5,  1 709,  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  before  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  aldermen  of  London,  and  was  dedicated  to  the 
former.  In  this  sermon  the  preacher  maintained  at  great 
length  the  doctrine  of  absolute  non-resistance,  inveighed  against 
the  principle  of  toleration,  described  the  Church  as  in  a  con- 
dition of  imminent  danger,  insinuated  very  intelligibly  that 
the  ministers  were  amongst  the  false  brethren,  reflected  severely 
upon  Burnet  and  Hoadly,  and  glanced  at  Godolphin  himself 
under  the  nickname  of  Volpone.'  Eef erring  to  the  vote  of 
Parliament  declaring  that  the  Church  was  in  no  danger,  he 
rather  happily  reminded  his  hearers  that  a  similar  vote  had 
been  carried,  about  the  person  of  Charles  I.,  at  the  very  time 
when  his  future  murderers  were  conspiring  his  death.  The 
sermon  being  delivered  on  a  very  conspicuous  occasion,  and 
conveying  with  great  violence  the  sentiments  of  a  large  party 
in  the  State,  had  an  immense  circulation  and  effect ;  and  Mr. 
Dolben,  the  son  of  the  last  Archbishop  of  York,  brought  both  it 
and  the  sermon  at  Derby  under  the  notice  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  House  voted  both  sermons  scurrilous  and 
seditious  libels,  and  summoned  Sacheverell  to  the  bar.  He 
at  once  acknowledged  the  authorship,  and  stated  that  the 
Lord  Mayor,  who  was  a  Tory  member,  had  encouraged  him  to 
publish  the  sermon  at  St.  Paul's.  This  assertion  would  pro- 
bably have  led  to  the  expulsion  of  the  Lord  Mayor  had  he  not 
strenuously  contradicted  it.  The  House  ultimately  resolved  to 
proceed   against  Sacheverell  in  the  most  formal  and   solemn 

>  A  cliaracter  in.  the  '  Fox '  of  Ben  Jonson. 


CH.  I.  IMPEACHMENT   OF   SACHEVERELL.  57 

manner  in  its  power — by  an  impeachment  at  the  bar  of  the 
House  of  Lords.  It  was  desired  to  obtain  a  condemnation  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  sermon,  invested  with  every  circumstance 
of  dignity  that  could  strike  the  imagination,  and,  if  possible, 
prevent  a  revival  of  the  agitation.  The  House,  at  the  same 
time,  took  great  pains  that  there  should  be  no  doubt  of  the 
main  issue  that  was  raised.  The  ablest  and  most  conspicuous 
assailant  of  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience  was  Hoadly,  who 
had  recently  been  answering  the  sermon  of  Bishop  Blackball 
on  this  very  question.  The  House  of  Commons  accordingly, 
when  condemning  Sacheverell,  passed  a  resolution  warmly  eulo- 
oising  the  writings  of  Hoadly  in  defence  of  the  Revolution,  and 
petitioning  the  Queen  to  bestow  upon  him  some  piece  of 
Chm-ch  preferment.  It  refused  to  admit  Sacheverell  to  bail ; 
but  this  favour  was  soon  afterwards  granted  him  by  the  House 
of  Lords. 

The  extreme  impolicy  of  the  course  which  was  adopted  was 
abundantly  shown  by  the  event.  Had  Sacheverell  been  merely 
prosecuted  in  the  ordinary  law  courts,  or  had  the  House  by  its 
own  authority  burnt  the  sermon  and  imprisoned  the  preacher 
for  the  remainder  of  the  Session,  the  matter  would  probably 
have  excited  but  little  commotion.  Somers,  and  Eyre  the 
Solicitor-General,  from  the  beginning  opposed  the  impeach- 
ment, and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  both  Marlborough  and 
Walpole  joined  in  the  same  view.  Godolphin,  however,  actuated, 
it  was  said,^  by  personal  resentment,  urged  it  on,  and  it  was 
voted  by  a  large  majority,  and  was  at  once  accepted  by  the 
Church  as  a  challenge.  The  necessary  delay  was  sufficient  for 
the  organisation  of  a  tremendous  opposition,  and  an  outburst  of 
enthusiasm  was  manifested  such  as  England  had  never  seen 
since  the  day  of  the  acquittal  of  the  bishops.  The  ablest  Tory 
counsel  undertook  the  defence  of  Sacheverell.  Atterbury,  the 
most  brilliant  of  the  High  Church  controversialists,  took  a 
leading  part  in  composing  the  speech  which  he  delivered.     The 

'  See  the  Hist,  of  the  Last  Four  Tears  of  Queen  Anne. 


58  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  en.  i. 

Vice-Chancellor  of  Oxford  was  one  of  his  bail.  He  appeared  in 
court  ostentatiously  surrounded  by  several  of  the  chaplains  of 
the  Queen.  Prayers  were  offered  in  all  the  leading  churches, 
and  even  in  the  royal  chapel,  for  *  Dr.  Sacheverell  under  per- 
secution,' and  the  pulpits  all  over  England  were  enlisted  in  his 
cause.  When  the  Queen  went  to  listen  to  the  proceedings,  her 
sedan  chair  was  surrounded  by  crowds  crying,  '  God  bless  your 
Majesty!  We  hope  your  Majesty  is  for  High  Church  and 
Sacheverell.'  When  Sacheverell  himself  drove  to  Westminster 
Hall,  the  people  thronged  in  multitudes  to  kiss  his  hand,  and 
every  head  was  uncovered  as  he  passed.  The  meeting-houses  of 
the  Dissenters  were  everywhere  wrecked,  and  that  of  Burgess,  one 
of  their  most  conspicuous  preachers  in  London,  was  burnt.  The 
houses  of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  of  Wharton,  of  Burnet,  Hoadly, 
and  Dolben,  were  threatened.  All  who  were  believed  to  be 
hostile  to  Sacheverell,  all  who  refused  to  join  in  the  cry  of  '  High 
Church  and  Sacheverell,'  were  insulted  in  the  streets,  and  the 
condition  of  London  became  so  serious  that  large  bodies  of 
troops  were  called  out.  The  excitement  propagated  itself  to 
every  part  of  the  country  and  to  every  class  of  society,  and  the 
Church  agitations  under  Anne  are  among  the  first  political 
movements  in  England  in  which  women  are  recorded  to  have 
taken  a  very  active  part.' 

The  prosecution,  on  the  other  hand,  was  conducted  with  much 

'  See   Swift's  Examiner,  No.   31,  of  the  sympathetic  influence  of  the 

Defoe    has    given    a    characteristic  clergy  upon  the   sex  and  the  near 

description  of  the  female  enthusiasm  affinity  between  the  gown  and  the 

for  Sacheverell.    '  Matters  of  govern-  petticoat ;  since  all  the  errors  of  our 

ment  and  affairs  of  state  are  become  j)resent  and  past  administrators,  and 

the  province  of  the  ladies  .  .  .  they  all  breaches  made  upon  our  politics 

have  hardly  leisure  to  live,  little  time  could  never  embark   the   ladies  till 

to  eat  and  sleep,  and  none  at  all  to  you  fall  upon  the  clergy.  But  as  soon 

say  their  prayers  .  ,  .  Little  Miss  has  as  you  pinch  the  parson  he  holds  out 

Dr.  Sacheverell's  picture  put  into  her  his  hand  to  the  ladies  for  assistance, 

prayer-book,  that  God  and  the  Doctor  and  they  appear  as  one  woman  in  his 

may  take  her    up    in  the  morning  defence.'    Wilsori's  Life  of  Defoe,  Hi. 

before  breakfast ;  and  all  manner  of  124-126.     See  too  the  Spectator,  No. 

discourse  among  the  women  runs  now  Ivii.     Clarendon,  however,  notices  a 

upon  war  and  government  .  .  .  This  similar  outburst  of  feminine  zeal  in 

new_  invasion    of    the    politician's  the    semi-religious    Politics    of    the 

province  is  an  eminent  demonstration  Rebellion. 


CH.  1.  laiPEACHMENT  OF  SACHEVERELL.  59 

skill.  The  charges  were  that  Sacheverell  had  described  the  ne- 
cessary means  to  bring  about  theEevolution  as  odious  and  unjusti- 
fiable, had  denounced  the  Toleration  Act,  and,  in  defiance  of  the 
votes  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  had  represented  the  Church 
as  in  great  danger,  and  the  administration,  both  in  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  afiairs,  as  tending  to  the  destruction  of  the  constitu- 
tion. Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  conduct  of  a  party 
which  treated  such  expressions  of  opinion  as  criminal  offences, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  speeches  of  the  managers  of 
the  impeachment  were  distinguished  both  for  moderation  and 
ability,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  Burke,  long  afterwards,  when 
separating  from  the  Whig  party  at  the  French  Revolution, 
appealed  to  them  as  tlie  ablest  and  most  authentic  expression 
of  the  Whig  policy  of  the  statesmen  of  1688.^  It  is  impossible, 
indeed,  to  read  those  of  Jekyll,  Walpole,  Lechmere,  Parker, 
Eyre,  and  the  other  managers,  without  being  struck  with  the 
guarded  caution  they  display  in  asserting  the  rights  of  nations 
to  resist  their  sovereigns.  They  carefully  restrict  it  to  cases 
in  which  the  original  contract  was  broken,  in  which  the  sove- 
reign has  violated  the  laws,  endeavoured  to  subvert  the  scheme 
of  government  determined  on  in  concert  by  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons.  It  is  on  these  grounds,  and  on  these  alone,  that  they 
justify  the  Eevolution.  The  notion  that  the  son  of  James  II. 
was  a  supposititious  child,  which  had  borne  a  greater  part  in  the 
struggle  than  Whig  writers  like  to  admit,  was  completely  aban- 
doned. The  managers  rested  their  case  solely  on  the  ground 
that  a  sovereign  may  be  legitimately  resisted  who  has  infringed 
the  constitutional  compact  by  which  he  was  bound ;  but  at  the 
same  time  they  acknowledge  fully  that  a  grave  and  distinct 
violation  of  a  fundamental  law  is  necessary  as  a  justification, 
that  obedience  is  in  all  normal  times  a  stringent  duty,  and  that 
the  instability  of  a  government  exposed  without  defence  in  its 
most  essential  parts  to  perpetual  revision,  at  every  fluctuation 
of  popular  caprice,  is  wholly  foreign   to   the   genius  of  the 

*  Appeal  from  the  Aetv  to  tlie  Old  Whigs. 


CO       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.     ch.  i. 

English  constitution.  To  state  in  the  fullest  and  most  au- 
thentic manner  the  principles  on  which  the  Whig  party  justified 
tlie  Revolution  was  one  great  object  of  the  impeachment, 
and  that  object  was  fully  attained.  Another  important  result 
was  that  the  Tory  defenders  of  Sacheverell  abandoned  in  the  law 
courts  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  teaching  of  the  pulpit,  and, 
aiming  chiefly  at  acquittal,  met  the  charges  rather  by  evasion 
than  by  direct  defence.  The  right  of  nations  in  extreme  cases 
to  resist  their  sovereign  was  the  main  question  discussed,  and 
the  language  of  the  pulpit  on  the  subject  had  been  perfectly 
unequivocal.  The  clergy  had  long  taught  that  royalty  was  so 
eminently  a  divine  institution  that  no  injustice,  no  tyranny, 
no  persecution  could  justify  resistance.  Sacheverell,  it  is  true, 
in  his  speech  during  the  trial,  reaffirmed  this  doctrine  with- 
out qualification,  and  numerous  passages  were  cited  from  the 
homilies  and  from  the  works  of  Anglican  divines,  support- 
ing it;  but  his  counsel,  on  the  other  hand,  admitted  the 
right  of  resistance  in  extreme  cases.  They  contended  that 
a  preacher  was  justified  in  laying  down  broad  moral  precepts, 
without  pausing  to  enumerate  all  possible  exceptions  to 
their  application ;  and  one  of  the  ablest  of  them  maintained, 
in  direct  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  Tory  theology,  that  the 
supreme  power  in  England  was  not  in  the  sovereign,  but  in  the 
legislature.^  In  the  same  spirit  they  urged  that  the  term 
*  Toleration  Act '  was  a  popular  expression  unknown  to  the  law, 
that  the  proper  designation  of  the  law  referred  to  was  the  '  Act 
of  Indulgence  ; '  and  that  when  Sacheverell  denounced  '  tolera- 
tion '  he  alluded  only  to  the  insufficient  prosecution  of  sceptical 
or  blasphemous  books.  Many  passages  from  such  books  were 
cited,  and  Sacheverell  himself  scandalised  a  large  part  of  his 
audience  by  calling  God  to  witness,  in  opposition  to  the  plain, 
direct,  and  unquestionable  meaning  of  his  sermon,  that  '  he  had 
neither  suggested,  nor  did  in  his  conscience  believe,  that  the 
Church  was  in  the  least  peril  from  Her  Majesty's  administra- 

■  See  Sir  Simon  Harcourt's  Speech  for  Sacheverell, 


CH.  I.  POPULARITY   OF   SACHEVERELL.  61 

tion.'  Such  an  assertion  could  have  no  effect,  except  to  shake 
the  credit  of  him  who  made  it ;  and  the  House  of  Lords  voted 
him  guilty,  by  sixty-nine  to  fifty-two. 

Here,  however,  ended  the  triumph  of  the  Whigs.  The 
popular  feeling  in  favour  of  Sacheverell  tliroughout  England 
had  risen  almost  to  the  point  of  revolution.  The  immense 
majority  of  the  clergy  were  ardently  on  his  side.  The  sym- 
pathies of  the  Queen  were  in  the  same  direction.  In  the 
excited  condition  of  the  public  mind,  any  act  of  severity  might 
lead  to  the  most  dangerous  consequences,  and  the  House  did 
not  venture  to  impose  more  than  a  nominal  penalty.  The 
Dukes  of  Argyle  and  Somerset,  who  had  for  some  time  been 
wavering  in  their  allegiance,  took  this  occasion  of  abandoning  the 
ministry,  and  several  other  Whig  peers  accompanied  them.' 
Sacheverell  was  merely  suspended  from  preaching  for  three  years, 
and  his  sermons,  together  with  the  Oxford  decree  of  1683,  were 
burnt.  A  resolution,  that  during  the  three  years  of  his  suspen- 
sion he  should  be  ineligible  for  promotion,  was  rejected  by  a 
majority  of  one.  The  House  of  Commons  at  the  same  time 
ordered  the  collection  of  sceptical  passages  which  had  been 
made  for  the  defence  to  be  burnt,  as  well  as  two  books,  '  On  the 
Eights  of  the  Christian  Church '  and  a  treatise  '  On  the  Word 
Person,'  of  which  the  friends  of  Sacheverell  had  complained. 

The  sentence  was  very  naturally  regarded  as  a  triumph  for 
the  accused,  and  it  was  followed  by  a  long  and  fierce  burst  of 
popular  enthusiasm.  In  London  and  almost  every  provincial 
town  the  streets  were  illuminated,  and  the  blaze  of  bon- 
fires attested  the  exultation  of  the  people.  Addresses  to 
■  the  Queen  poured  in  from  every  part  of  the  country,  some- 
times asserting  in  abject  form  the  doctrine  of  passive  obe- 
dience, censuring  the  conduct  of  her  ministers,  and  in  many 
cases  imploring  her  to  dissolve  a  Parliament  which  no  longer 
represented  the  sentiments  of  her  people.^  Sacheverell, 
within  a  few  months  of  his  trial,  obtained  a  living  in  Shrop- 

'  Coxe's  Marlborough,  ch.  Ixxxvii.      has  been  published  in  a  single  volumQ 
*  A  collection  of  these  addresses       (1710). 


62  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

shire,  and  his  journey  to  take  possession  of  it  was  almost  like  a 
royal  progress.  At  Oxford,  where  he  continued  for  some  time, 
he  was  magnificently  entertained  by  the  Earl  of  Abingdon, 
by  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University,  and  by  the  heads  of 
the  colleges.  At  Banbury  the  Mayor,  Eecorder,  and  Alder- 
men came,  in  full  robes  and  with  the  mace  before  them,  to 
bring  him  a  present  of  wine,  and  to  congratulate  him  on  his 
deliverance.  At  Warwick,  at  Wrexham,  at  Shrewsbury,  at 
Bridgenorth,  at  Ludlow,  hundreds  of  the  inhabitants,  on  horse- 
back, escorted  him  into  the  town,  while  the  church  bells  rang 
in  his  honour,  and  the  steeples  were  draped  with  flags,  and  the 
streets  hung  with  flowers.  Drums  beat  and  trumpets  sounded 
at  his  approach,  and  wherever  he  appeared,  his  steps  were 
thronged  by  admirers,  wearing  the  oak-leaf  so  popular  since 
the  Restoration.  He  was  forbidden  to  preach,  but  the  churches 
could  not  contain  the  multitudes  who  pressed  to  hear  him  read 
the  prayers,  and  crowds  of  infants  were  borne  to  the  fonts  where 
he  presided.  The  Dissenters  all  over  England  were  fiercely 
assailed.  At  Bristol  one  of  their  places  of  worship  was  pulled 
down,  and  the  materials  were  flung  into  the  river.  At  Exeter, 
Cirencester,  Oxford,  Gloucester,  and  many  other  places  their 
meeting-houses  and  habitations  were  attacked,  and  the  Low 
Churchmen  were  regarded  with  scarcely  less  virulence.  One 
clergyman — the  rector  of  the  important  and  populous  parish 
of  Whitechapel — signalised  himself  by  exhibiting,  as  an  altar- 
piece  in  his  church,  a  picture  of  the  Last  Supper,  in  which 
Judas  was  represented  attired  in  a  gown  and  band,  with  a  black 
patch  upon  his  forehead,  and  seated  in  an  el«bow-chair.  The 
figure  is  said  to  have  been  at  first  intended  for  Burnet,  but  the 
painter,  fearing  prosecution,  ultimately  fixed  upon  Dean  Ken- 
net,  a  somewhat  less  powerful  opponent  of  Sacheverell.' 

The  policy  of  the  Queen  during  this  outbreak  was  marked 

*  Eennet's  lAfe,  p.  140-142.     Ken-  Churchmen   during    the   Sacneverell 

net  wore  a  patch  on  account  of    a  episode.     See  too  Wright's  House  of 

gun-shot    received    in  early    youth.  Hanover,    Wilson's    Life    of    Defoe^ 

This  book  gives  a    curious    picture  and  the  Histories  of   Burnet,  Boyer, 

of  the   animo&ity    against  the  Low  SomerviUe,  and  Tindal. 


CH.  I.  FALL   OF  THE  MINLSTRY   IN    1710.  63 

by  much  cautious  skill.  However  strong  may  have  been  her 
private  sympathies,  she  appears  during  the  trial  to  have  acted 
in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  her  ministers.  The  chaplain 
who  prayed  for  Sacheverell  in  her  chapel  was  dismissed.  Chief 
Justice  Holt  having  died  during  the  trial,  Parker,  one  of  the 
most  eloquent  managers  of  the  impeachment,  was  promoted 
to  his  place,  and  a  fortnight  after  the  verdict  the  Queen  pro- 
rogued Parliament  with  a  speech,  deploring  that  some  had 
insinuated  that  the  Church  was  in  danger  under  her  adminis- 
tration, and  expressing  her  wish  'that  men  would  study  to 
be  quiet,  and  to  do  their  own  business,  rather  than  busy  them- 
selves in  reviving  questions  and  disputes  of  a  very  high 
nature.'  She  soon,  however,  perceived  that  the  country  was 
with  the  Tories,  and  manifested  her  own  inclination  without 
restraint.  Among  the  minor  incidents  of  the  impeachment 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  had  been  the  reappearance  in 
public  life  of  the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury.  He  had  been  con- 
spicuous among  the  great  Whig  nobles  who  invited  William  to 
England,  but  after  a  brief,  troubled,  and  vacillating  career,  had 
abandoned  politics,  and  retired,  embittered  and  disappointed, 
to  Italy.  '  I  wonder,'  he  wrote  with  great  bitterness  to  Somers 
in  1700,  'how  any  man  who  has  bread  in  England  will  be  con- 
cerned in  business  of  State.  Had  I  a  son,  I  would  sooner  bind 
him  a  cobbler  than  a  courtier,  and  a  hangman  than  a  states- 
man.' After  a  long  period  of  occultation,  however,  he  again 
took  his  place  in  that  assembly  of  which  he  had  once  been  the 
brightest  ornament,  and  when  the  Sacheverell  case  arose  he  gave 
the  weight  of  a  name  and  influence  that  were  still  very  great  to 
the  Tory  side,  and  was  one  of  those  who  voted  for  the  acquittal. 
About  a  week  after  the  prorogation,  the  Queen,  without  even 
apprising  her  ministers  till  the  last  moment  of  her  intention, 
dismissed  Lord  Kent,  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  gave  the  staff 
to  Shrewsbury.  The  ministry  should,  undoubtedly,  have  resigned, 
but,  partly  through  the  constitutional  indecision  of  Godolphin, 
and  partly  perhaps  in  order  to  avoid  a  dissolution  of  Parliament 
at  a  time  when  the  current  flowed  strongly  against  their  party, 


64  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  en.  i. 

they  remained  to  drink  the  cup  of  humiliation  to  the  dregs. 
Godolphin,  it  is  true,  wrote  a  very  singular  letter  of  frank  and 
even  angry  remonstrance  to  the  Queen. ^  '  Your  Majesty,'  he  said, 
'  is  suffering  yourself  to  be  guided  to  your  ov7n  ruin  and  destruc- 
tion as  fast  as  it  is  possible  for  them  to  compass  it  to  whom  you 
seem  so  much  to  hearken  ; '  and  he  proceeded  to  expatiate  upon 
the  new  appointment,  in  terms  which  few  ministers  would 
have  employed  towards  their  sovereign.  But  this  letter  had  no 
result.  In  the  following  month  Marlborough  was  compelled  to 
bestow  the  command  of  two  regiments  upon  Colonel  Hill,  the 
brother  of  Mrs.  Masham,  who  had  displaced  his  wife  in  the 
favour  of  the  Queen.  In  June,  Sunderland,  the  Secretary  of 
State  and  son-in-law  of  Marlborough,  was  summarily  dismissed, 
and  the  seals  were  bestowed  upon  Lord  Dartmouth,  one  of  the 
most  violent  of  Tories.  In  August  a  still  bolder  step  was 
taken.  Godolphin  himself  was  dismissed.  The  treasury  was 
placed  in  commission,  Harley  being  one  of  the  commissioners, 
and  that  statesman  became  at  the  same  time  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  and  virtually  Prime  Minister.  In  September,  the  re- 
maining ministers  were  dismissed.  Parliament  was  dissolved. 
An  election  took  place,  which  was  one  of  the  most  turbulent  ever 
known  in  England,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Whigs  was  so  crushing 
that  the  ascendancy  of  their  opponents  during  the  remaining 
years  of  the  reign  was  undisputed. 

The  immense  power  displayed  by  the  Church  in  this  struggle 
was  not  soon  forgotten  by  statesmen.  The  utter  ruin  of  a 
ministry  supported  by  all  the  military  achievements  of  Marl- 
borough and  by  all  the  financial  skill  of  Godolphin  was  beyond 
question  mainly  due  to  the  exertions  of  the  clergy.  It  furnished 
a  striking  proof  that  when  fairly  roused  no  other  body  in  the 
country  could  command  so  large  an  amount  of  political 
enthusiasm,  and  it  was  also  true  that  except  under  very 
peculiar  and  abnormal  circumstances  no  other  body  had  so 
firm  and  steady  a  hold  on  the  affections  of  the  people.     The 

'  See  this  curious  letter  in  Boyer,  pi^.  470-471. 


CH.  I.  INTELLECTUAJL   ACTIVITY  UNDER  ANNE.  65 

fact  is  the  more  remarkable  when  we  consider  the  very  singular 
intellectual  and  political  activity  of  the  time.  If  we  measure  the 
age  of  Anne  by  its  highest  intellectual  achievements,  a  period 
that  was  adorned  among  other  names  by  those  of  Newton,  Pope, 
Swift,    Addison,  Steele,    Defoe,    Bolingbroke,  and   Prior,    can 
hardly  find  a  rival  in  English  history  between  the  age  of  Shake- 
speare and  Bacon  and   the  age  of  Byron  and  Scott.     If  we 
measure  it  less  by  its  highest  achievements  than  by  its  efibrts 
to  enlarge   the  circle  of  intellectual   interests  it  will  appear 
scarcely  less  eminent.     It  was  in  the  reign  of  Anne  that  Defoe 
created  the  realistic  novel,  that  Steele  originated,  and  Addison 
brought  to    perfection,    the    periodical  essay  which  for   about 
three-quarters   of  a  century   was   the   most   popular  form  of 
English  literature,  that  the  first  daily  newspaper  was  published 
in  England,  that  the  first  English  law   was    enacted    for  the 
protection  of  literary  property.     A  passion  for  physical  science 
had  spread  widely  through  the  nation.    Except  in  the  University 
of  Leydeu,  where  it  was  taught  by  an  eminent  professor  named 
's  Gravesande,   the  great    discovery  of    Newton    had   scarcely 
foimd  an  adherent  on  the  Continent  till  it  was  popularised  by 
Voltaire  in  1728,    but  in    England   it   had   already   acquired 
an  ascendancy.     Bentley,  Whiston,  and  Clarke  enthusiastically 
adopted  it.     Gregory  and  Keill  made  it  popular  at  Oxford,  and 
Desaguliers,  who  gave  lectures  in  London  in  1713,  says  that 
he  found  the  Newtonian  philosophy  generally  received  among 
persons  of  all  ranks  and  professions,  and  even  among  the  ladies, 
by  the  help  of  experiments.^     Never  before  had  so   large   an 
amount  of  literary  ability   been  enlisted  in   politics.       Swift, 
Bolingbroke,  Atterbury,  Arbuthnot,  and  Prior  were  prominent 
among  the    Tories ;    Addison,    Steele,    and  Defoe   among  the 
AMiigs.      Side    by  side  with  the  '  Tatler,'  the  '  Spectator,'  the 
'  Guardian,'  and  the  '  Englishman,'  in  which  the  political  was 
in  a  great  degree  subordinate  to  the  literary  element,  there  arose 
a   multitude   of  purely   political  newspapers  and   periodicals. 

'  See  ■\l\Tieweirs  Hist,  of  Inductive  Philosoj>liy,  ii.  145-155. 
VOL.    I.  6 


66  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

The '  Observator '  of  Tutchin,  the  '  Eeview  '  of  Defoe,  the  '  Ee- 
hearsal '  of  Leslie,  the  '  Examiner '  of  Swift,  '  Fog's  Journal,' 
*  Dyer's  News  Letter,'  the  '  Medley,'  the  '  Mercurius  Eusticus,'  the 
'Postman,'  the  '  Flying  Post,'  the '  English  Post,'  the '  Athenian 
Mercury,'  and  many  others  contributed  largely  to  the  formation 
of  public  opinion.  The  licentiousness  of  the  press  was  made  a 
matter  of  formal  complaint  in  an  address  by  the  Lower  House 
of  Convocation  in  1703,  and  in  a  Queen's  Speech  in  1714,  and 
the  Tory  Ministry  endeavoured  to  repress  it  by  the  Stamp  Act 
of  1712,  and  by  a  long  series  of  prosecutions.  'There  is 
scarcely  any  man  in  England,'  said  a  great  Whig  writer  a  few 
years  later,  '  of  what  denomination  soever  that  is  not  a  free 
thinker  in  politics,  and  hath  not  some  particular  notions  of  his 
own  by  which  he  distinguishts  himself  from  the  rest  of  the 
community.  Our  island,  which  was  formerly  called  a  nation  of 
saints,  may  now  be  called  a  nation  of  statesmen.'  ^  The  extra- 
ordinary multiplication  of  pamphlets  published  at  a  very  low 
price,  and  industriously  dispersed  in  the  streets,  was  especially 
noticed,^  and  political  writings  which  happened  to  strike  the 
popular  taste  acquired  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century 
a  circulation  perhaps  greater  in  proportion  to  the  population 
than  any  even  of  our  own  time.  The  '  True-born  Englishman' 
of  Defoe,  which  was  published  in  1 700-1  in  order  to  check  the  cla- 
mour against  William  as  a  foreigner,  went  through  nine  editions 
on  good  paper  in  about  four  years,  was  printed  in  the  same  period 
twelve  times  without  the  concurrence  of  the  author,  and  no 
less  than  80,000  copies  of  the  cheap  editions  are  said  to  have 
been  disposed  of  in  the  streets  of  London.^  About  40,000 
copies  of  the  famous  sermon  of  Sacheverell  were  sold  in  a  few 
days.*  More  than  60,000  copies  of  a  now  forgotten  Whig 
pamphlet,  by  an  author  named  Benson,  published  in  answer 
to  the  Tory  addresses  to  the    Queen    after  the  impeachment 

•  Freeholder,  No.  53,  pays.'  —  Cmn-egpondance  avee  L'Elec- 

*  See  Wilson's  lAfe  of  Defoe,  ii.  29.  trice  Sophie,  torn.  ii.  p.  22-i. 
Leibnitz,  a  few  years  before,  wrote,  *  Wilson's  Life  of  Defoe,  i.  346. 
'  Les  feuilles  volantes  ont  plus  d'effi-  *  Burnet's  Otvii  Tinws,  ii.  538. 
cace  en  Angleterre  qu'en  tout  autre 


CH.  I.  THE  DOCTRINE   OF  NON-RESISTANCE.  67 

of  Sacheverell,  are  said  to  have  been  sold  in  London. • 
Bisset's  'Modern  Fanatic,'  a  scurrilous  pamphlet  against 
Sacheverell,  ran  through  at  least  twelve  editions.  Of  Swift's 
'Conduct  of  the  Allies,'  which  was  written  to  prepare  the 
country  for  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  1 1 ,000  copies  were  sold  in 
a  single  month.^  The  '  Snectator,'  as  Fleetwood  assures  us, 
attained  at  last  a  daily  circulation  of  14,000.  The  unprece- 
dented multiplication  of  political  clubs,  which  forms  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  social  features  of  the  period,  attests  no  less 
clearly  the  almost  feverish  activity  of  political  life.  Never  was 
there  a  period  less  characterised  by  that  intellectual  torpor 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  associate  with  ecclesiastical  domina- 
tion, yet  in  very  few  periods  of  English  history  did  the  English 
Chiu-ch  manifest  so  great  a  power  as  in  the  reign  of  Anne. 

Another  consideration  which  adds  largely  to  the  impressive- 
ness  of  this  fact  is  the  nature  of  the  doctrine  that  was  mainly  at 
issue.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  its  truth,  the  opinion  that 
it  is  unlawful  for  subjects  to  resist  their  sovereign  imder  any 
circumstances  of  tyranny  and  misgovernment  does  not  appear 
to  be  well  fitted  to  excite  popular  enthusiasm.  This,  however, 
was  the  doctrine  which,  during  the  whole  of  the  Sacheverell 
agitation,  was  placed  in  the  fore-front  of  the  battle  both  by  the 
"Whigs  who  assailed  and  by  the  Tories  who  maintained  it.  It  is 
obvious  that  in  its  plain  meaning  it  amounted  to  a  condemna- 
tion of  the  Revolution,  and  it  is  equally  manifest  that  those 
who  conscientiously  held  it  would  eventually  gravitate  rather 
to  the  House  of  Stuart  than  to  the  House  of  Brunswick.  The 
position  of  the  clergy  during  the  whole  of  the  preceding  reign 
had  been  a  very  false  one.  A  small  minority  had  consistently 
refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  new  sovereign. 
A. minority,    which  was    probably    still   smaller,  consistently 

•  "Wilson's  lAfe  of  Defoe,  iii.  p.  129.  establisJied  b>/ a  certain  free  Parliament 

The  pamphlet  was  entitled,  A  Letter  of  Siceden,  to  the  utter  enslaving  of 

to  Sir  Josejjh  Banlis,  by  birth  a  Sivede,  that  country. 

hut  naturalised  and  a  Member  of  the  ^  Wilson's  Life  of  Defote,  iii.  p. 

present    Parliament,    concerning    the  300. 
late    MineJiead    doctrine   rvhich   n-as 


68       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.     ch.  i. 

maintained  the  Whig  theory  of  government.  The  immense 
majority,  however,  held  the  doctrines  of  the  indefeasible  title 
of  hereditary  royalty,  and  of  the  sinfulness  of  all  resistance  to 
oppression,  and  they  only  took  the  oaths  to  the  Eevolutionary 
Government  with  much  equivocation,  and  after  long  and 
painful  misgiving.  Much  was  said  about  the  supposed  vacancy 
of  the  throne  by  the  abdication  of  James.  Much  was  said 
about  the  suspicions  attaching  to  the  birth  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  though  in  a  few  years  these  appear  to  have  gradually 
disappeared.  Burnet  in  1689  had  written  a  pastoral  letter,  in 
which  he  spoke  of  William  as  having  a  legitimate  title  to  the 
throne  of  James  '  in  right  of  conquest  over  him,'  and  although 
the  House  of  Commons,  resenting  the  expression,  had  ordered 
the  letter  to  be  burnt,  the  tneory  it  advocated  was  probably 
adopted  by  many.^  Among  the  clergy,  however,  who  subscribed 
the  oath  of  allegiance,  the  usual  refuge  lay  in  the  distinction 
between  the  king  de  jure  and  the  king  de  facto.  Sherlock  and 
many  other  divines,  who  asserted  the  doctrine  of  passive 
obedience,  contended  that  it  should  be  paid  to  the  king  who 
was  actually  in  power.  They  were  not  called  upon  to  defend 
the  Eevolution.  They  were  quite  ready  to  admit  that  it  was 
a  crime,  and  that  all  concerned  in  it  had  endangered  their 
salvation,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  William  was  upon  the 
throne,  and  rebellion  being  in  all  cases  a  sin,  they  were  bound 
to  obey  him.  As  long,  therefore,  as  they  were  not  expected  to 
pronounce  any  judgment  upon  his  title,  they  could  con- 
scientiously take  the  oath  of  allegiance.  They  believed  it  to 
be  a  sin  to  resist  the  actual  sovereign,  and  they  could  therefore 
freely  swear  to  obey  him.  The  statesmen  of  the  Eevolution  at 
first  very  judiciously  met  the  scruples  of  the  clergy  by  omitting 
from  the  new  oath  of  allegiance  the  words  '  rightful  and  lawful 
king,'  2  which  had  formed  part  of  the  former  oath,  but  in  the 

'  See  Somers'  Tracts,  xii.  2i2.  conformity    to    homilies     and    ru- 

*  Lathbury's    Hist,    of   the    JVbn-  bricks  will  make  you  owned  by  the 

jurorg,  p.  52-54.    A  wiiter  in  1696  present  Church  if  you  should  acknow- 

said  with  much  truth,  '  The  Shibbo-  ledge  the  King  to  be  otherwise  so  than 

leth   of    the    Church    now    is   King  de  facto.''— An  Account  of  the  Gronth 

William's    de   facto    title,    and    no  of  Deism  in  England,  y.' Id. 


CH.  1.  THE  DIVINE  RIGHT   OF   KINGS.  69 

last  year  of  William  this  refuge  was  cut  off.  On  the  death  of 
James,  and  on  the  recognition  of  the  Pretender  by  Lewis,  the 
Parliament,  aiming  expressly  at  this  clerical  distinction,'  im- 
posed upon  all  ecclesiastical  persons,  as  well  as  upon  all  other 
officials,  the  oath  of  abjuration,  which  required  them  to  assert 
that  the  pretended  Prince  of  Wales  had  no  right  whatever  to 
the  crown,  and  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  existing  sovereign  as 
'  rightful '  and  '  lawful.' 

This  harsh  and  impolitic  measure  was  only  carried  after  a  vio- 
lent struggle,  and  it  was  very  naturally  expected  that  it  would 
produce  a  great  schism  in  the  Church.  The  new  oath  involved  a 
distinct  judgment  on  the  Kevolution,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how 
anyone  who  held  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  as  it 
was  commonly  taught  in  the  English  Church  from  the  time 
of  the  Restoration,  could  possibly  take  it.^  The  resources  of 
casuistry,  however,  have  never  been  a  monopoly  of  the  disciples 
of  Loyola  ;  and  State  Churches,  though  they  have  many  merits, 
are  not  the  schools  of  heroism.  At  the  time  of  the  Reformation 
the  great  body  of  the  English  clergy,  rather  than  give  up  their 
preferments,  oscillated  to  and  fro  between  Protestantism  and 
Catholicism  at  the  command  of  successive  sovereigns,  and  their 
conduct  in  1 702  was  very  similar.  With  scarcely  an  exception 
they  bowed  silently  before  the  law,  and  consented  to  take  an 
oath  which  to  every  unsophisticated  mind  was  an  abnegation  of 
the  most  cherished  article  of  their  teaching.  At  the  time 
when  the  Act  came  into  force  Anne  had  just  mounted  the 
throne,  and  the  hopes  which  the  clergy  conceived  from  her 
known  affection  for  the  Church  made  them  peculiarly  anxious 

•  Burnet's  Own  Times,  ii.  297.  rights ;  so,  since  that  right  was  con- 

*  Burnet  gives  us  a  summary  of  damned  by  law,  they  by  abjuring  it 
the  methods  that  were  resorted  to.  did  not  renounce  the  BUnne  right 
'  Though  in  the  oath  they  declared  that  he  had  by  his  birth.  They  also 
that  the  pretended  Prince  of  Wales  supposed  that  this  abjuration  would 
had  not  any  right  whatsoever  to  the  only  bind  during  the  present  state 
crown,  yet  in  a  paper  (which  T  saw)  of  things,  but  not  in  case  of  another 
that  went  about  among  them,  it  was  revolution  or  conquest.'  Burnet's 
said  that  right  was  a  term  of  law  0)V)i  Times,  ii.  p.  314.  See  too  a 
whichhadonly  relation  to  Z<;/7«Z»'!(7/;^.<,  curious  letter  in  Byrom's  liemairui, 
but  not  to  a  Divine  right  or  to  iirth-  vol.  i.  part  i.  pp.  30-31. 


70  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

to  remain  attached  to  the  Government.  The  abjuration  oath 
contributed  to  perpetuate  the  non-juror  schism  by  repelling 
those  who  would  otherwise  have  returned  to  the  Church  at  the 
death  of  James.  It  lowered  the  morality  of  the  country  by 
impairing  very  materially  the  sanctity  of  oaths,  but  it  neither 
paralysed  the  energies  nor  changed  the  teaching  of  the  Tory 
clergy.  At  no  period  since  the  Eestoration  did  they  preach 
the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  the  duty  of 
passive  obedience  more  strenuously  than  in  the  reign  of  Anne, 
and  at  very  few  periods  did  they  exercise  a  greater  influence  on 
the  English  people. 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  featm-es  of  this  teaching  was 
the  language  that  was  adopted  about  Charles  I.  The  memory 
of  that  sovereign  had  long  since  been  transfigured  in  the  Tory 
legend,  and  immediately  after  his  execution  it  became  the 
custom  of  the  Episcopal  clergy  to  draw  elaborate  parallels 
between  his  sufferings  and  those  of  Christ.  The  service  in  the 
Prayer-book  commemorating  the  event,  by  appointing  the  nar- 
rative of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  to  be  read  from  the  Gospel, 
suggested  the  parallel,  which  was  also  faintly  intimated  by 
Clarendon,  and  developed  in  some  of  the  Eoyalist  poems 
and  sermons  with  an  astonishing  audacity.'  Foremost  in 
this  branch  of  literature  was  a  very  curious  sermon  preached 
before  Charles  II.  at  Breda  in  1649.^  The  preacher  declared 
that  '  amongst  all  the  martyrs  that  followed  Christ  into  heaven 
bearing  his  cross  never  was  there  any  one  who  expressed  so 
great  conformity  with  our  Saviour  in  his  sufferings '  as  King 
Charles.  He  observed  that  the  parallel  was  so  exact  that  it 
extended  to  the  minutest  particulars,  even  to  the  hour  of 
execution,  for  both  sufferers  died  at  three  in  the  afternoon. 
'When  Christ  was  apprehended,'  he  continued,    'he  wrought 

'  See  two  curious  collections  called        Kings  are  gods  once  removed.  It  hence  appears 
Monumentum      Regale  ;      or.     Select       No  court  but  Heaven's  can  trie  them  by  their 

Epitaphs  and   Poems   on    Charles   I.  e  ^'fv     r.^    ,     *v  n    ^.  v       v,      .     ^ 

f^RAn\   „^/i  T- i-    •    •         Tr  J .  .,,  Sothatfor  Charles  the  Good  tohave  been  tryed 

V,,       -''  aticuunm  \  ottvum,  TVlth  And  cast  by  mortal  votes  was  Deicide. 

Elegies  on  Charles  /.,  Lm'd  Capel,  and 

Lord  Villiers  (Vst  year  of  Charles  I.'s  ^  ^^  was  reprinted  in  the  defence 

Mani;yrdoni).  1  subjoin  one  specimen:  ^f  the  sermon  of  Dr,  Binckes  in  1702. 


CH.  I.  CHARLES  I.   COMPARED   TO   CHRIST.  71 

a  miraculous  cure  for  an  enemy,  healing  Malchus'  ear  after  it 
was  cut  ofif ;  so  it  is  well  known  that  God  enabled  oiur  sovereign 

to  work  many  wonderful  cures  even  for  his  enemies When 

our  Saviour  suffered,  there  were  terrible  signs  and  wonders,  for 
there  was  darkness  over  all  the  land  ;  so  during  the  time  of  our 
sovereign's  trial  there  were  strange  signs  seen  in  the  sky  in 
divers  places  of  the  kingdom,     When  our  Saviour  suffered,  the 
centurion,  beholding  his  passion,  was  convinced  that  he  was  the 
Son  of  Gfod,  and  feared  greatly.     So  one  of  the  centurions  who 
guarded  our  sovereign  ....  was  convinced  and  is  to  this  day 
stricken  with  great  fear,  horror,  and  astonishment.     When  they 
had  crucified  our  Saviom-,  they  parted  his  garments  amongst 
them,  and  for  his  coat  (because  being  without  seam  it  could  not 
easily  be  divided)  they  did  cast  lots ;  even  so,  having  crucified  om: 
sovereign,  they  have  parted  his  garments  amongst  them,  his 
houses  and  furniture,  his  parks  and  revenues,  his  three  kingdoms, 
and  for  Ireland,  because  it  will  not  be  easily  gained,  they  have 
cast  lots  who  should  go  thither  to  conquer  it,  and,  so,  take  it  to 
themselves ;  in  all  these  things   our  sovereign  was  the  living 
image  of  our  Saviour.'     In  the  reign  of  Anne  language  of  this 
kind  again  became  common,  and  in  1 702  a  noted  clergyman, 
named  Binckes,  in  a  sermon  before  the  Lower  House  of  Con- 
vocation, not  only  intimated  that  the  plague  and  the  fire  of 
London  were  due  to  the  death  of  Charles,  but  even  proceeded  to 
argue  that  his  execution  transcended  in  enormity  the  murder 
of  Christ.     '  If,  with  respect  to  the  dignity  of  the  person,  to 
have  been  born  King  of  the  Jews  was  what  ought   to   have 
screened  our  Saviour  from  violence ;  here  is  also  one  not  only 
born  to  a  crown  but  actually  possessed  of  it.     He  was  not  only 
called  king  by  some  and  at  the  same  time  derided  by  others  for 
being  so  called,  but  he  was  acknowledged  by  all  to  be  a  king. 
He  was  not  just  dressed  up  for  an  hour  or  two  in  purple  robes, 
and  saluted  with  a  "  Hail,  King  ! "  but  the  usual  ornaments  of 
royalty  were  his  customary  apparel.  .  .  .  Our  Saviour  declaring 
that  "  His  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world  "  might  look  like  a 
sort  of  remmciation  of  his  temporal  sovereignty,  for  tlie  present 


72  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

desiring  only  to  reig-n  in  the  hearts  of  men,  but  here  was  nothing 
of  this  in  the  case  before  us.  Here  was  an  indisputable,  un- 
renounced  right  of  sovereignty,  both  by  the  laws  of  God  and 
man.  .  .  .  Christ  was  pleased  to  set  himself  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  usual  temptations  incident  to  royal  greatness,  and  chose  a 
condition  which  in  all  respects  seemed  to  be  the  reverse  to 
majesty,  as  if  it  had  been  with  design  to  avoid  the  snares  which 
accompany  it,  notwithstanding  that  he  knew  himself  otherwise 
sufficiently  secure,  havingneither  been  conceived  in  sin,  nor  in  any 
way  subject  to  the  laws  of  it.  Though  the  prince  whom  Grod  was 
pleased  to  set  over  us  was  no  way  excepted  from  human  frailty, 
had  no  other  guard  against  sin  when  surrounded  with  tempta- 
tions, but  only  a  true  sense  of  religion  and  the  usual  assistance 
of  God's  grace  ....  yet  his  greatest  enemies  ....  could 
never  charge  him  with  the  least  degree  of  vice.  .  .  .  When 
Pilate  asked  the  Jews,  "  Shall  I  crucify  your  king  ?  "  they  thought 
themselves  obliged  to  express  their  utmost  resentment  against 
anyone  that  should  pretend  to  be  their  king  in  opposition  to 
Caesar.  This  they  did  upon  a  principle  of  loyalty,  and  out  of  a 
misguided  zeal,  and  some  stories  they  had  got  of  a  design  he 
had  to  destroy  their  temple,  to  set  himself  up,  and  pull  down 
the  Church ;  but  in  the  case  before  us  he  against  whom  our 
people  so  clamorously  called  for  justice  was  one  whose  greatest 
crime  was  his  being  a  king  and  a  friend  to  the  Church.'  This 
sermon  was  censured  by  the  House  of  Lords  as  'containing 
several  expressions  which  gave  just  scandal  and  offence  to  all 
Christian  people,'*  but  the  author  was  soon  after  appointed 
Dean  of  Lichfield,  and  was  twice  elected  by  the  clergy 
Prolocutor  of  Convocation.  The  publication  of  Clarendon's 
history  in  1702  and  the  two  following  years  probably  con- 
tributed something  to  the  enthusiasm  for  Charles.  A  writer 
during  the  Sacheverell  agitation,  speaking  of  the  doctrine  of 
passive  obedience,  said,  '  I  may  be  positive,  at  Westminster 
Abbey  where   I   heard   one  sermon  of  repentance,  faith,  and 

"  Pari.  Hist.,  vi.  23-24.     Burnet's  Oivn  Times,  ii.  316. 


CH.  I.  CHARLES  I.   COMPAKED  TO   CHRIST.  73 

renewing  of  the  Holy  Gliost,  I  heard  three  of  the  other,  and  it 
is  hard  to  say  whether  Jesus  Christ  or  King  Charles  were 
oftenest  mentioned  and  magnified.' '  The  University  of  Ox- 
ford caused  two  similar  pictures  to  be  painted,  the  one 
representing  the  death  of  Christ,  and  the  other  the  death  of 
Charles.  An  account  of  the  sufferings  of  each  was  placed 
below  ;  and  they  were  hung  in  corresponding  places  in  the 
Bodleian  library.^  The  poet  Young,  in  a  dedication  to  Queen 
Anne,  described  her  grandsire  as  standing  at  the  last  judgment 
among  'the  spotless  saints  and  laurelled  martyrs,'  while  the 
Almighty  Judge,  bending  from  the  throne,  examined  the  scars 
on  the  neck  of  Charles,  and  then  looked  at  his  own  wounds.' 

Another  and  still  more  curious  feature  of  the  Church  en- 
thusiasm under  Queen  Anne  was  the  revival  of  the  old  belief 
that  the  sovereign  was  endowed  with  the  miraculous  power  of 
curing  the  struma,  or  scrofulous  tumours,  by  his  touch.  This 
singular  superstition  had  existed  from  a  very  early  time,  both 
in  England  and  in  France.  The  English  kings  were  supposed 
to  have  inherited  the  power  from  Edward  the  Confessor ;  the 
French,  according  to  some  writers,  from  St.  Lewis,  according  to 
others,  from  Clovis.*  The  miracle  was  performed  with  eveiy 
circumstance  of  publicity,  under  the  inspection  of  the  royal 
surgeons,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  King's  chaplains,  and  the 

'  Bisset's  3Iodern  Fanatick  (12th  English  kings,  that  they  derived  it 

ed.)  p.  57.  from    Lucius,    who    was    converted 

2  G.  Agar  Ellis's  Inquiries  respect-  before  Clovis,  and  that  the  French 

ing  Clarendon  (1827),  p.  177.  kings   derived    it    from    alliance   of 

>His  lifted  hands  Ms  lofty  neck  surround,  ^lood   with    the    Y.ngM&h       Cliai-isma 

To  hide  the  scarlet  of  a  circUng  wound.  seu  JJomim  banattoms  {ln\)i).      liau- 

Th'  Almighty  Judge  bends  forward  from  rentius,  a  physician  of  Henry  IV.  of 

His  throne  „  ^  „-.       France,  wrote   a  book    De  Mirabili 

Thosescarstomark,  and  then  regards  His        ^  '  n       ^-  ■         i  •  i     i. 

o^.n_  Struvmrum,    Curatwne,  in  which  he 

Dedication  to  Queen  Anne  prrfixed  to  appropriates  the  pOWCr  solely  tO  the 
rourujs  Poem  on  the  Last  Day.  French  kings.  Usually  the  English 
Young  had  the  grace  to  suppress  this  writers  admitted  that  the  French 
dedication  in  later  editions  of  the  kings  derived  the  power  from  St. 
poem.  Lewis,  and  contented  themselves  with 
*  There  was,  however,  some  con-  assertingthesuperior  antiquity  of  the 
troversy  on  the  subject,  and  a  good  British  prerogative  derived  from  Ed- 
deal  of  national  jealousy  was  shown.  ward  the  Confessor.  See "  CoUier's 
Tooker  thinks  that  the  gift  was  Ecclesiastical  Hist.,  Bk.  iii.  ch.  2. 
originally  the  sole  prerogative  of  the  Fuller's  Church  Hist.,  Bk.ii. 


74  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

tenacity  with  which  it  survived  so  many  changes  of  civilisation 
and  of  religion,  is  one  of  the  most  curious  facts  in  ecclesiastical 
history.  In  France  it  was  an  old  custom  for  the  King,  imme- 
diately after  his  consecration,  to  go  in  pilgi-image  to  the 
monastery  of  St.  Mai'coul,  in  Champagne,  where,  after  a 
period  of  preparatory  devotion,  he  performed  the  cure.  The 
patients  were  first  visited  by  the  chief  physician  of  the  King. 
They  were  then  ranged  in  the  church,  or,  if  they  were  too 
numerous,  in  the  adjoining  cloisters  and  park.  The  King  went 
among  them,  accompanied  by  his  grand  almoner,  the  captain  of 
his  guards,  and  his  chief  physician,  and  he  made  the  sign  of  the 
cross  on  the  face  of  each,  pronouncing  the  words  '  Dieu  te 
guerisse,  le  Eoy  te  touche.'  It  was  pretended  that  the  cures 
were  more  numerous  in  France  under  the  third  race  of  kings 
than  under  the  two  preceding  ones,  and  it  is  recorded  that 
Lewis  XIV.,  three  days  after  his  consecration,  in  1654,  touched 
more  than  2,500  sick  persons  in  the  church  of  St.  Remy,  at 
Eheims.^  In  England  a  special  Latin  service  was  drawn  up  for 
the  occasion  under  Henry  VII.,  and  it  appears  to  have  con- 
tinued, with  the  omission  of  some  Popish  phraseology,  till  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.'^  The  Reformation  in  no  degree 
weakened  the  belief.  A  Doctor  of  Divinity,  named  William 
Tooker,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  wi'ote  a  work  describing  the 
cures  he  had  himself  witnessed,  and  he  relates  among  other 
cases  that  of  a  Popish  recusant  who  was  converted  to  Protestant- 
ism, when  he  found  by  experience  that  the  excommunicated 
Queen  had  cured  his  scrofula  by  her  touch.  The  Catholics  were 
much  perplexed  by  the  miracle,  and  were  inclined  to  argue  that 
it  was  performed  by  virtue  of  the  sign  of  the  cross  which  was 
employed,but  in  the  following  reign  this  sign  was  omitted  from  the 
ceremony  without  in  any  degTee  impairing  its  eflScacy.  Under 
Charles  1.  the  service  was  drawn  up  in  English,  and  in  the  conflict 
between  the  royal  and  republican  parties  the  miracle  assumed  a 

'  Menin,    Histoire     du    Sacre    et  many  scrofulous  persons. 
Couronnement    des    Hois    de    France  '  See  Lathbuxy's  Hist,  of  Convoca- 

(1723),  pp.  307-314.     St.  Marcoul  is  tion,  p.  435. 
said  during  his  life  to  have   cured 


en.  I.  THE  EOYAL  TOUCH.  75 

considerable  prominence.  One  cure  worked  by  tliis  sovereign 
was  especially  famous.  As  he  was  being  brought  by  his  enemies 
through  Winchester,  on  his  way  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  an  inn- 
keeper of  Winchester,  who  was  grievously  ill  and  in  daily  fear 
of  suffocation,  and  who  had  vainly  sought  help  from  the  doctors, 
flung  himself  in  the  way  of  the  royal  prisoner.  He  was  driven 
back  by  the  guards  and  not  suffered  to  touch  the  King,  but  he 
threw  himself  on  his  knees  upon  the  ground,  imploring  help, 
and  crying  'God  save  the  king!'  The  King,  struck  by  the 
spectacle  of  so  much  loyalty,  said  '  Friend,  I  see  thou  art 
not  permitted  to  come  near  me,  and  I  cannot  tell  what  thou 
wouldst  have,  but  God  bless  thee  and  grant  thy  desire.'  The 
prayer  was  heard ;  the  illness  vanished,  and,  strange  to  relate, 
the  blotches  and  tumours  which  disappeared  from  the  body  of 
the  patient  appeared  in  the  bottle  from  which  he  had 
before  taken  his  unavailing  medicine,  and  it  began  to  swell 
both  within  and  without.  The  story  is  related  by  Dr.  John 
Nicholas,  warden  of  Winchester  College,  who  declares  it  '  within 
his  own  knowledge  to  be  every  word  of  it  essentially  true.'  * 
After  the  death  of  the  King  it  was  found  that  handkerchiefs 
dipped  in  his  blood  possessed  the  same  ef&cacy  as  the  living 
touch.  Eichard  Wiseman, '  sergeant  chirurgeon  of  Charles  II.,' 
published,  in  1676,  a  very  curious  work  called  'Chirurgical 
Treatises,'  in  which  he  entered  largely  into  the  treatment  of  the 
king's  evil,  and  declared  that  many  hundreds  had  derived 
benefit  from  the  blood  of  Charles.^  A  case  was  related  of  a  girl 
of  fourteen  or  fifteen,  at  Deptford,  who  had  become  quite  blind 
through  the  king's  evil.  She  had  sought  in  vain  for  help  firom 
the  surgeons,  till  at  last  her  eyes  were  touched  with  a  hand- 
kerchief stained  with  the  royal  blood,  and  she  at  once  regained 
her  sight.  Hundreds  of  persons,  it  was  said,  came  daily  to  see 
her  from  London  and  other  places.^     Charles  II.  retained  the 

'  Browne's     CJiarisma    Basilicon,  the  British  Museum,  called,'^  3Iiraele 

pp.  132-137.  of  Miracles  tvrouffht  hj  the  JSlood  of 

^  P.  247.      See  too  Browne's  C/ia-  Charles  I.  iipon  a  Mayd  at  Detford, 

risma  Basilicon,  p.  109.  four  miles  from  London  (1619). 

'  This  case  is  related  in  a  tract  in 


76  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

power  in  exile,  as  Francis  had  done  when  a  prisoner  at  Madrid, 
and  he  touched  for  the  scrofula  in  Holland,  Flanders,  and  even 
France."'  In  the  great  outburst  of  enthusiastic  loyalty  that 
followed  the  Eestoration  the  superstition  attained  its  climax,  and 
it  may  be  seriously  questioned  whether  in  the  whole  compass  of 
history  there  is  any  individual  to  whom  a  greater  number  of 
miracles  has  been  ascribed  than  to  the  most  worthless  and 
iminoral  of  English  kings.  Wiseman  assures  us  that  he  had 
been  '  a  frequent  eye-witness  of  cures  performed  by  his  Majesty's 
touch  alone,  without  any  assistance  from  chirurgery,  and  these 
many  of  them  such  as  had  tired  out  all  the  endeavours  of  all 
chirurgeons  before  they  came  thither.'  One  of  his  surgeons, 
named  John  Browne,  whose  ofiScial  duty  it  was,  during  many 
years,  to  inspect  the  sick  and  to  witness  and  verify  the  cures, 
has  written  a  book  on  the  subject,  which  is  among  the  most 
curious  in  the  literature  of  superstition,  and  which  contains  a 
history  of  the  cures,  a  description  of  numerous  remarkable  cases 
which  came  before  the  author,  and  a  full  calendar,  year  by  year, 
of  the  sick  who  were  touched.  It  appears  that  in  a  single  year 
Charles  performed  the  ceremony  8,500  times,  and  that  in  the 
course  of  his  reign  he  touched  nearly  100,000  persons.  Before 
the  sick  were  admitted  into  the  presence  of  the  King  it  was 
necessary  that  they  should  obtain  medical  certificates  attesting 
the  reality  of  the  disease,  and  in  1684  the  throng  of  sufi"erers 
demanding  these  was  so  great  that  six  or  seven  persons  were 
pressed  to  death  before  the  surgeon's  door.^  Some  points,  how- 
ever, connected  with  the  miracle  were  much  disputed.  It  was  a 
matter  of  controversy  whether,  as  was  popularly  believed,  the 
touch  had  a  greater  efficacy  on  Good  Friday  than  on  any  other 
day ;  whether,  as  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  maintained,  the  cure  was  so 
dependent  upon  the  gold  medal  which  the  King  hung  around 
the  neck  of  the  patient  that  if  this  were  lost  the  malady 
returned ;  whether  the  King  obtained  the  power  directly  from 

•Wiseman's  Clnrm-gical  Treatises,  ^  Evelyn's  Bia^nf,  March  28,  1684. 

p.  245.  Browne's  Charisma  Basilicon,  See  too  Evelyn's  description  of  the 
pp.  63-64.  ceremony,  July,  1660. 


CH.  I.  THE   EOYAL  TOUCH.  77 

Grod  or  through  the  medium  of  the  oil  of  consecration.  The 
Catholicism  of  James  did  not  impair  his  power,  and  he 
exercised  it  to  the  very  eve  of  the  Revolution.  A  petition  has 
been  preserved  in  the  records  of  the  town  of  Portsmouth,  in  New 
Hampshire,  asking  the  Assembly  of  that  province,  in  1687, 
to  grant  assistance  to  one  of  the  inhabitants  who  desired  to 
make  the  long  journey  to  England  in  order  to  obtain  the 
benefit  of  the  royal  touch.  ^  In  that  same  year,  in  the  centre  of 
the  learned  society  of  Oxford  the  King  touched  seven  or  eight 
hundred  sick  on  a  single  Sunday.'^  In  the  preceding  year,  in 
the  midst  of  what  is  termed  the  Augustan  age  of  French  litera- 
ture, the  traveller  Gremelli  saw  Lewis  XIV.  touch,  on  Easter 
Sunday,  about  1,600  at  Versailles.^ 

The  political  importance  of  this  superstition  is  very  manifest. 
Educated  laymen  might  deride  it,  but  in  the  eyes  of  the 
English  poor  it  was  a  visible,  palpable  attestation  of  the 
indefeasible  sanctity  of  the  royal  line.  It  placed  the  sove- 
reignty entirely  apart  from  the  category  of  mere  human 
institutions,  and  proved  that  it  possessed  a  virtue  and  a  glory 
which  the  other  political  forces  of  the  nation  could  neither 
create,  nor  rival,  nor  destroy.  It  proved  that  no  persona] 
immorality,  no  misgovernment,  no  religious  apostacy,  no 
deprivation  of  political  power,  could  annul  the  consecration 
which  the  Divine  hand  had  imparted  to  the  legitimate  heir  of 
the  British  throne.  The  Revolution  in  England  at  once  sus- 
pended the  miracle,  for  William,  being  a  stranger,  was  not 
generally  believed  to  possess  the  power,  though  Whiston 
relates  that  on  one  solitaty  occasion  the  King  was  prevailed 
.  upon  to  touch  a  sick  person,  '  praying  God  to  heal  the  patient, 
and  grant  him  more  wisdom  at  the  same  time,'  and  that  the 
touch,  in  spite  of  the  manifest  incredulity  of  the  Sovereign, 
proved  efficacious.''     In  the  person  of  Anne,  however,  the  old 


'Graham's    Hist,   of  the    United  iv.  p.  630. 
States,!. -^l^.  ■> Whiston 's   i)/emom  (Ed.    1753), 

-  lAfe  of  Anthony  Wood.  i.  p.  377.   Whiston  ascribed  the  cures 

*  Churchill's  Collection  of  Voyages,  to  the  prayers  of  the  priests. 


78  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  j. 

dynasty  was  again  upon  the  throne,  and  in  the  ecclesiastical 
and  political  reaction  of  her  reign  the  royal  miracle  speedily 
revived.  The  service,  which  was  before  printed  separately,  was> 
now  inserted  in  the  Prayer-book.  The  Privy  Council  issued  pro- 
clamations stating  when  the  Queen  would  perform  the  miracle. 
The  announcement  was  read  in  all  the  parish  churches.  Dr. 
Dicken,  the  Sergeant  Surgeon  to  the  Queen  who  examined  the 
patients,  attested  in  the  strongest  terms  the  reality  of  many 
of  the  cures.'  Swift  mentions,  in  his  'Journal  to  Stella,' 
making  an  application  through  the  Duchess  of  Ormond,  in 
1711,  in  favour  of  a  sick  boy.  In  a  single  day,  in  1712,  200 
persons  were  touched,  and  among  the  scrofulous  children  who 
underwent  the  operation  was  Samuel  Johnson.'^  The  Nonjurors 
were  especially  zealous  in  urging  the  miracle  as  a  proof  of  the 
necessity  of  adhering  to  the  ancient  line,  and  it  is  indeed  remark- 
able how  many  eminent  authorities,  in  dififerent  periods,  may  be 
cited  in  favour  of  the  belief.  It  found  its  way  into  the  greatest  of 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare/  and  Fuller,  Heylin,  Collier,  and  Carte 
among  historians,  as  well  as  Sancroft,  Whiston,  Hickes,  and  Bull 
among  divines,  have  expressed  their  firm  belief  in  the  miracle. 
Nothing  can  be  more  emphatic  than  the  language  of  some  of  them. 
'  This  noisome  disease,'  says  Fuller,  speaking  of  the  king's  evil, '  is 
happily  healed  by  the  hands  of  the  Kings  of  England  stroking 
the  sore,  and  if  any  doubt  of  the  truth  thereof,  they  may  be 
remitted  to  their  own  eyes  for  further  confirmation.'  *  '  To 
dispute  the  matter  of  fact,'  said  Collier,  '  is  to  go  to  the  excesses 
of  scepticism,  to  deny  our  senses,  and  to  be  incredulous  even  to 
ridiculousness.'  ®  '  That  divers  persons  desperately  labouring 
under  the  king's  evil,'  said  Bull,  '  have  been  cured  by  the  mere 
touch  of  the  royal  hands,  assisted  with  the  prayers  of  the 
priests  of  our  Church  attending,  is  unquestionable,  unless 
the  faith   of    all   our   ancient    writers,    and   the    consentient 

'  Douglas'  Criterwn  (Ed.  1807),  pp.  »  Macbeth,  Act  iv.  Scene  3. 

203-205.  4  Fuller's  amrch  Hist.,  Bk.  ii. 

2  Boswell's  Johnson  (Croker's  ed.)  *  Collier's  EccUsiastical  Hi«t.,  Bk. 

P-  7.  iii.  ch.  2. 


CH.  1.  JACOBITE   TENDENCIES  OF  THE  CLERGY.  79 

report  of  hundreds  of  most  credible  persons  in  our  own  ages, 
attesting-  the  same,  is  to  be  questioned.'^  We  may  observe, 
however,  that  even  Tooker  and  Browne  acknowledged  that  there 
were  some  who  questioned  the  miracle,  and  it  was  admitted  that 
the  sick  were  not  always  cured  and  that  the  cures  were  not 
always  lasting.  The  force  of  imagination  to  which  the  cere- 
mony powerfully  appealed  doubtless  effected  much.  Many  im- 
postors came  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  gold  medal  which 
was  bestowed  on  the  occasion  in  England,  or  the  alms  which 
were  distributed  in  France,  and  the  great  political  utility  of 
the  belief,  as  well  as  simple  sycophancy,  combined  with  honest 
credulity  to  sustain  the  delusion.'^ 

What  has  been  said  will  be  sufficient  to  show  the  extent 
and  the  nature  of  the  political  influence  the  Anglican  clergy  at 
this  time  exercised  in  England.  It  will  show  that  their 
theory  of  the  nature  of  royalty  was  radically  different  from 
that  of  a  constitutional  government ;  that,  but  for  the  happy 
fact  of  the  Catholicism  of  James  II.  and  of  his  son,  the  whole 
stress  of  their  influence  would  have  been  thrown  into  the  scale 
of  arbitrary  government ;  and  that,  in  spite  of  that  Catholicism, 
they  were  accustomed  to  preach  doctrines  from  the  pulpit  which 
could  have  no  other  legitimate  or  logical  conclusion  than  the 
restoration  of  the  Stuarts.  They  were,  it  is  true,  sincerely  devoted 
to  the  reigning  sovereign.  It  is  true  also  that  they  looked 
forward  with  real  alarm  to  a  Catholic  king,  that  they  some- 
times at  least  professed  themselves  attached  to  the  Protestant 
succession,^  and  that  very  few  of  them  were  prepared  to  make 

'  Sermon  on   St.  Paul's  Thorn  in  '  The  ablest  of  the  Tory  clergy, 

the  Flesh.  writing  with  the  object  of  repelling 

2  In  addition  to  the  older  books  I  the  charge  of  Jacobitism,  says,  '  The 

have  cited,  the  reader  may  find  much  logick  of  the  highest  Tories  is  now 

information  on  this  curious  subject  that  this  was  the  Establishment  they 

in  Wilson's  lAfe  of  Defoe,  i\.  15-21  ;  found  as  soon   as   they  arrived  at  a 

Nichols'    lAterarij    Anecdotes  of  the  capacity  of    judging,  that  they  had 

Eighteenth  Centurij,  ii.  495-504;  Lath-  no  hand  in  turning  out  the  late  King, 

bury's  Hist,  of  Convocation,  pp.  428-  and,  therefore,  had  no  crime  to  answer 

439  ;  Bishop  Douglas'   Criterion,  pp.  for  if  it  were  any  ;  that  the  inherit- 

-195-210  ;  Tindal's  Hist,   of  England,  ance  to  the  crown  is  in  pursuance  of 

Book  xxvi.  laws  made  ever  since  their  remem- 


80  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

serious  sacrifices  for  a  restoration  whicli  might  be  injurious  to 
the  Church.  Still,  the  natural  issue  of  their  teaching  could  not 
be  mistaken.  When  the  nation  was  called  to  choose  between  a 
sovereion  whose  title  was  lineal  descent  and  a  sovereign  whose 
title  rested  upon  a  revolution  and  an  Act  of  Parliament,  there 
was  not  much  doubt  to  which  side  the  consistent  adherent  of 
the  divine  right  of  kings  should  incline.  Had  the  Queen  died 
during  the  excitement  of  the  Sacheverell  agitation,  it  is  more 
than  probable  that  the  Pretender  would  have  at  once  been  sum- 
moned to  the  throne,  and  the  strength  of  the  Church  party  in 
England  was  the  most  serious  danger  which  then  menaced  the 
parliamentary  institutions  of  England.  Monopolising,  as  it 
did,  by  its  command  of  the  universities,  the  higher  education, 
and  attracting  by  its  great  rewards  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  talent  of  the  country,  its  power  in  an  age  when  there 
was  very  little  serious  scepticism  among  the  educated,  and  no 
considerable  rival  organisation  among  the  poor,  appeared 
almost  irresistible.  The  Church  was  the  natural  leader  of  the 
country  gentry  and  peasants.  Its  influence  ramified  through  all 
sections  of  society.  Its  pulpits  were  to  thousands  the  sole 
vehicle  of  instruction. 

Still,  great  as  was  its  power,  several  influences  had  been  at 
work  undermining  or  restricting  its  authority.  The  Church 
had  gained  something  at  the  Reformation  in  the  increased 
credibility  of  its  theology,  and  it  had  gained  much  more  by 
purging  away  the  taint  of  its  foreign  origin.  In  a  country 
where  the  national  sentiment  was  as  strong  and  as  insular  as 

brance,  by  whicli  all  Papists  are  over,  and  must,  in  their  own  opinion, 
excluded,  and  they  have  no  other  renounce  all  those  doctrines  by  setting 
rule  to  go  by ;  that  they  will  no  more  up  any  other  title  to  the  crown, 
dispute  King  William  III.'s  title  This,  I  say,  seemeth  to  be  the  political 
than  King  William  I.'s,  since  they  creed  of  all  the  high-principled  I 
must  have  recourse  to  history  for  have  for  some  time  met  with  of  forty 
both;  that  they  have  been  instructed  years  old  and  under.'  Swift's  Free 
in  the  doctrines  of  passive  obedience,  Thoughts  vpon  the  Present  State  of 
non-resistance,  and  hereditary  right,  Affairs.  The  language  commonly  used 
and  find  them  all  necessary  for  pre-  about  Charles  I.  is  quite  sufficient  to 
serving  the  present  Establishment  in  show  that  the  clergy  were  not  as  un- 
church and  State,  and  for  continuing  historical  as  was  alleged, 
the  succession  in  the  House  of  Han- 


CH.  1.  CONDITION   OF   THE  CLERGY.  81 

in  England  it  would  be  difficult  to  overrate  the  accession  of 
strength  thus  acquired.  Italian  intervention  had  been  for 
centuries  a  source  of  perpetual  irritation  to  the  national  sen- 
timent, while  the  Church  that  was  founded  at  the  Eeformation 
was  of  all  institutions  the  most  intensely  and  most  distinctively 
English.  Occasionally,  indeed,  great  outbiu-sts  of  political 
sycophancy  or  of  sacerdotal  extravagance  within  its  borders 
have  brought  it  into  collision  with  the  broad  stream  of  English 
thought,  but  considered  as  a  whole  and  in  most  periods  of  its 
history  it  may  justly  claim  to  have  been  eminently  national. 
Its  love  of  compromise,  its  dislike  to  pushing  principles  to 
extreme  consequences,  its  decorum,  its  social  aspects,  its 
instinctive  aversion  to  abstract  speculation,  to  fanatical  action, 
to  vehement,  spontaneous,  mystical,  or  ascetic  forms  of  devotion, 
its  admirable  skill  in  strengthening  the  orderly  and  philan- 
thropic elements  of  society,  in  moderating  and  regulating 
character,  and  blending  with  the  various  phases  of  national  life, 
all  reflected  with  singular  fidelity  English  modes  of  thought 
and  feeling,  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  the  English 
character.  But  on  the  other  hand  ecclesiastical  influence  in 
England  was  seriously  reduced  at  the  Eeformation,  not  only  by 
the  creation  of  the  new  doctrine  of  the  royal  supremacy,  and  by 
the  abolition  of  some  of  the  doctrines  most  favourable  to  eccle- 
siastical despotism,  but  also  more  directly  by  the  expulsion  of 
twenty-seven  mitred  abbots  from  the  House  of  Lords,  and  the 
proportion  of  spiritual  to  lay  peers  has  since  then  been  con- 
tinually diminishing  by  the  increase  of  the  latter.  Before  the 
abolition  of  the  monasteries  the  spiritual  peers  formed  a 
majority  of  the  Upper  House.  Even  after  the  removal  of  the 
abbots  and  priors  they  were  about  one-third ;  at  present  they 
are  less  than  one-fifteenth.' 

Accompanying  this  change  there  was  a  great  revolution  in 
the  social  position  of  the  clergy.  An  enormous  proportion  of 
the  revenues   of  the   Church  had  been  swept  away  by  the  con- 

'  Buckle's  Hist,  of  Civilisation,  i.  381. 
VOL.  I.  7 


82       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      ch.  i. 

tiscations  under  Henry  VIII.,  and  at  the  very  time  \shen  the 
absolute  or  nominal  incomes  of  the  clergy  were  thus  immensely 
reduced  the  great  influx  of  American  gold  was  lowering  the 
value,  or  in  other  words,  the  purchasing  power,  of  money  more 
rapidly  and  more  seriously  than  in  any  other  recorded  period. 
Besides  this  the  abolition  of  the  rule  of  celibacy,  while  it 
deprived  the  clergy  of  much  of  the  dignity  that  belongs  to  a 
separate  caste,  greatly  increased  their  usual  wants.  The  force 
of  these  three  causes  reduced  the  great  body  of  the  parochial 
clergy  to  extreme  destitution.  In  the  time  of  Elizabeth  they 
were  often  driven  to  become  shoemakers  or  tailors  in  order  to  earn 
their  bread,^  and  several  generations  passed  before  there  was 
much  perceptible  improvement.  '  The  revenues  of  the  English 
Church,'  said  a  writer  in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  '  are  generally  very  small  and  insufficient,  so  that 
a  shopkeeper  or  common  artisan  would  hardly  change  their 
conditions  with  ordinary  pastors  of  the  Church.  This  is  the 
great  reproach  and  shame  of  the  English  Eeformation,  and  will 
one  day  prove  the  ruin  of  Church  and  State.  The  clergy 
.  .  .  are  accounted  by  many  as  the  dross  and  refuse  of 
the  nation.  Men  think  it  a  stain  to  their  blood  to  place 
their  sons  in  that  function,  and  women  are  ashamed  to  marry 
with  any  of  them.'  ^  Another  writer,  who  wrote  nearly  at 
the  same  time,  tells  us  that  many  hundreds  of  the  parochial 
clergy  lived  on  incomes  of  not  more  than  20^.  to  30^.  a-year. 
He  describes  the  impoverished  clergyman  driven  to  lill  the 
dung-cart  or  to  heat  the  oven,  and  he  notices  especially  the 
discredit  reflected  on  the  order  by  the  fact  that  sons  of  clergy- 
men were  found  holding  horses  or  waiting  on  tapsters  on 
a  count  of  the  utter  inability  of  their  parents  to  provide  for 
them.*  At  the  time  when  Queen  Anne's  Bounty  was  granted, 
Burnet  assures  us  there  were  still  some  hundreds  of  cures 
that   had  not   a  certain  provision   of  20l.    a-year,  and  some 

>  See  Perry's  Jlist.  of  the  Clmrch      3rd  ed.  (1669),  pp.  367-369. 
cf  England,  i.  7.  »  Eachard's  Contempt  of  the  Clergy. 

*  Chamberlayne's  Anglite  Notitite, 


CH.  I.  CONDITION   OF  THE  CLERGY.  83 

thousands  that  had  not  50t*  Swift,  in  a  tract  published  a 
few  years  later,  maintains  that  the  position  of  the  rural  clergy- 
man in  England  was  better  than  that  of  the  same  class  in 
Ireland,  but  his  description  of  the  English  country  clergy- 
man amply  corroborates  all  that  has  been  said  of  his  low 
social  position.  '  He  liveth  like  an  honest  plain  farmer, 
as  his  wife  is  dressed  but  little  better  than  Goody.  He  is 
sometimes  graciously  invited  by  the  squire,  where  he  sitteth 
at  humble  distance.  If  he  gets  the  love  of  his  people  they 
often  make  him  little  useful  presents.  He  is  happy  by  being 
bom  to  no  higher  expectation,  for  he  is  usually  the  son  of 
some  ordinary  tradesman  or  middling  farmer.  His  learning  is 
much  of  a  size  with  his  birth  and  education,  no  more  of  either 
than  what  a  poor  hungry  servitor  can  be  expected  to  bring  with 
him  from  his  college.'  ^  The  position  of  such  a  curate  was 
by  no  means  the  worst.  The  system  of  pluralities,  which  had 
been  necessary  under  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth,  partly  on 
account  of  the  small  value  of  many  benefices,  and  still  more  on 
account  of  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  sufficient  number  of 
Reformed  clergymen  to  officiate  over  England,  had  been  much 
aggravated  during  the  period  that  immediately  followed  the 
Act  of  Uniformity,  and  it  produced  a  class  of  clergymen  of  the 
lowest  type.  '  The  cheapest  curates,'  wrote  Archbishop  Ten- 
nison  to  Queen  Anne  in  1713,'  are,  notwithstanding  the  care 
of  the  bishops,  too  often  chosen,  especially  by  lay  impropriators, 
some  of  whom  have  sometimes  allowed  but  51.  or  6L  a-year  for 
the  service  of  the  Church,  and  such  having  no  fixed  place  of 
abode,  and  a  poor  and  precarious  maintenance,  are  powerfully 
tempted  to  a  kind  of  vagrant  and  dishonourable  life,  wandering 
for  better  subsistence  from  parish  to  parish,  even  from  north  to 
south.'  3  Some  clergymen  were  hired  by  laymen  to  read  prayers 
at  their  houses  for  10s.  a  month,  and  many  others  lived  as 
private  chaplains  either  with  noblemen  or  with  country  gentle- 

'  Burnet's  Hist,  of  his  Own  Thnes,  '  See  a  remarkable    MSS.   letter 

ii.  370.  about  pluralities,  by  the  Archbishop, 

*  Considerations  on  Two  Bills  re-  in  the  Domestic  Papers  at  the  Record- 

latinij  to  the  Clergy  of  Ireland  (1731).  office,  Jan.  1712-13. 


84  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

men  at  salaries  of  from  lOl.  to  30^.  a  year,  with  vales. •  These 
clereymen  were  popularly  known  as  Mess  Johns,  trencher  chap- 
lains, or  young  Levites.  They  were  usually  treated  like  upper 
menials.  They  lived  on  familiar  terms  with  the  servants,  were 
made  the  butt  of  the  squire  and  of  his  children,  were  dismissed 
from  the  dinner  table  as  soon  as  the  pastry  appeared,^  and  if 
they  had  not  already  formed  a  connection  with  the  cook  and 
the  housemaid,  they  often  closed  their  career  by  purchasing 
some  small  living  at  the  expense  of  a  marriage  with  the 
cast-off  mistress  of  their  patron.  This  great  evil  has  been 
attributed  to  the  period  of  the  civil  war,  when  numbers  of 
the  proscribed  clergy  found  shelter  in  the  houses  of  small 
country  gentry ;  but  the  trencher  chaplains  existed  at  an  earlier 
date ;  they  are  vividly  painted  both  by  Bishop  Hall  ^  and  by 
Burton,^  and  the  results  of  their  treatment  were  very  evident. 
The  Nonjuror  Lesley  justly  described  it  as  one  of  the  gTeat 
causes  of  the  discredit  of  the  clergy  that  '  chaplains  are  now 
reckoned  under   the  notion  of  servants,'  and  he  complained 

'  Compare    Eachard's    Causes  of  passages  from  the  Tfe^fer  and  (r?«w<fja?j, 

the  Contempt  of  the  Clergy  (10th  ed.),  from  Oldham's  Satires,  and  from  some 

p.  25  ;  Oldham's  poem,  To  a  Friend  other  soiu'ces  in  Calamy's  Life,  pp. 

ahout  to  leave  the  University  ;  Swift's  217-219.     So  too  Gay  speaks  of 

Project  for  the  Advancement  of  He-  „,        ^v  ^  ^x.   ^  , ,  .     ,    ■       •.     ^    • 

7-   •       Jit      T  J.  IT  -KT      f  Cheese  that  the  table  s  closing  ntes  denies, 

hgwn    the  Intelligencer,  No  5.  ^^^  ^.^^  ^^  ^..^^  ^^.  unwilling  chaplain  rise 
2  bee  a  very  curious  collection  of  Trivia  Book  u. 

'  A  gentle  squire  would  gladly  entertain 
Into  his  house  some  trencher  chappelain, 
Some  willing  man  that  might  instruct  his  sons 
And  that  could  stand  to  good  conditions : 
First,  that  he  lie  upon  the  truckle  bed 
While  his  young  maister  lieth  over-head ; 
Second,  that  he  do  on  no  default 
Ever  presume  to  sit  above  the  salt ; 
Third,  that  he  never  charge  his  trencher  twice ; 
Fourth,  that  he  use  all  common  courtesies, 
Sit  bare  at  meales,  and  one  half  rise  and  wait ; 
Last,  that  he  never  his  young  master  beat 
But  he  must  aske  his  mother  to  define 
How  many  jerks  she  would  his  breech  should  line ; 
All  these  observed,  he  would  contented  be 
To  give  five  markes  and  winter  liverie. 

Hall's  Satires,  Book  ii.  Sat.  6. 
Anatomy  of  Melanclwly,  Part  i.  sec.  2,  Mem.  3,  Subs.  15. 


CH.  I.  DECADENCE   OF  THE  CHURCH.  85 

that  instead  of  being  appointed  by  the  bishops  it  was  '  left 
to  everyone's  fancy  (and  some  very  unable  to  judge)  to  take 
in  and  turn  out  at  their  pleasure,  as  they  do  to  their  foot- 
men, that  they  may  be  wholly  subservient  to  their  humour 
and  their  frolics,  sometimes  to  their  vices ;  and  to  play  upon 
the  chaplain  is  often  the  best  part  of  the  entertainment,  and 
religion  suffers  with  it.' '  A  cringing  and  obsequious  character 
was  naturally  formed,  and  the  playwriters  found  in  these 
clergymen  one  of  the  easiest  subjects  for  their  ridicule.  Even 
in  the  towns  where  the  stamp  was  much  superior,  the  clergy 
had  their  separate  clubs  and  coffeehouses,  mixed  little  with  the 
laity,  and  were  nervously  apprehensive  of  ridicule.^  The  town 
rectors  and  the  great  church  dignitaries  were,  it  is  true,  second 
to  none  in  Europe  in  genius  and  in  learning,  and  they  occupied 
a  very  conspicuous  social  position,  but  even  they  were  by  no 
means  uniformly  opulent.  Swift  assures  us  that  there  were 
at  least  ten  bishoprics  in  England,  whose  incomes  did  not 
average  600^.  a  year.^  The  beautiful  picture  which  Herbert  has 
drawn  of  an  ideal  country  clergyman  shows  that  a  high  con- 
ception of  clerical  duty  was  not  unknown  among  the  rustic 
clergy ;  and  Addison  probably  drew  his  portrait  of  the  chaplain 
of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  from  living  examples  ;^  but  the  class 
in  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  necessarily 
ignorant  and  coarse,  and  an  impoverished  married  clergy  mix  too 
closely  in  the  secular  affairs  of  life  to  retain  the  kind  and  degree 
of  reverence  with  which  the  mendicant  friar  is  often  invested. 
Something  was  done  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution  to 

'  Tlie  Case  of  the  Regale  and  Pon-  the  number  of  men  of   good  family 

tificate  stated.     See,  too,  the  descrip-  that   entered    the    Church,   and   his 

tions  of  these  chaplains  in  Eachard  picture  is,  perhaps,  in  other  respects  a 

and  in  the  Athenian  Oracle  (3rd  ed.,  little  over-colom-ed,  but  the  passages 

vol.  1.  p.  542),  and  on  their  marriages  I    have    cited,   are,   I    think,    quite 

a  characteristic   passage  in   Swift's  sufficient  to  establish  its  substantial 

Directions    to    the    Waiting    Maid.  accuracy. 

Macaulays    well-known    description  ^  Swift's  Project  for  the  Advance- 

of  the  clergy  in  the  latter  part  of  the  ment  of  Heligion. 

seventeenth   century,  has   been  very  '  Preface  to  the  Bishop  of  Sarwm^s 

severely  criticised  in  a  little  volume  Introduction. 
by  Churchill  Babington.     It  is  clear  <  Sjiectatm;  No.  106. 

that   Macaulay    greatly   understated 


86  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

remedy  these  evils  by  private  benevolence,i  ^nd  Queen  Anne's 
Bounty  placed  a  sum  of  about  17,000^.  a  year  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Church  for  the  augmentation  of  small  livings.^  The  custom 
of  keeping  chaplains,  as  distinguished  from  tutors,  in  great 
houses,  fell  about  the  same  time  into  desuetude,  and  this  fact 
was  one  cause  of  the  general  neglect  of  family  worship  diuring 
the  Hanoverian  period.^  But  though  an  amelioration  of  the 
social  position  of  the  clergy  undoubtedly  took  place,  it  was  very 
slow,  and  it  was  not  until  1809  that  Parliament  adopted  the 
policy  of  making  direct  grants  for  the  augmentation  of  small 
livings.  The  low  social  position  of  the  country  clergy  did 
not  prevent  them  from  forming  one  of  the  most  powerful 
forces  in  the  country,  but  it  no  doubt  enfeebled  the  Church 
interest,  which  might  have  otherwise  been  irresistible  in 
English  politics.  The  practice  of  bestowing  high  political 
posts  upon  clergymen  almost  disappeared  in  England  after 
the  Eeformation  ;  the  last  instance  of  the  kind  was  under 
Queen  Anne,  when  the  Privy  Seal  was  bestowed  on  Eobinson, 
the  Bishop  of  Bristol,  but  in  Ireland,  as  we  shall  see,  political 
affairs  were  largely  administered  by  prelates  at  a  much  later 
period-  The  power  of  imposing  direct  taxation  on  the  clergy 
had  from  a  very  early  date  been  reserved  for  Convocation, 
whose  enactments,  however,  on  this  point  required  the  con- 
firmation of  Parliament,  but  in  1664  the  right  of  self-taxation 
was  withdrawn  from  the  Church ;  Convocation  thus  lost  its  most 
important  prerogative,  and  the  loss  was  not  at  all  adequately 
supplied  by  the  privilege  of  voting  for  members  of  parliament, 
which  was  then  bestowed  on  the  clergy.  The  attitude  of  the 
Church  towards  the  Eevolution  still  further  weakened  its 
influence.  The  servile  doctrine  of  passive  obedience  which  it 
proclaimed  when  the  liberties  of  England  seemed  tottering 
to   their  fall ;    its  virtual  abandonment  of   that  doctrine  the 

'  Eachard  notices  that  bishops  had  encumbered    by    some     very    heavy 

done    something    to    augment    the  charges.     See  Hodgson's  account  of 

vicarages  in  their  dioceses.  Q%ieen  Anne's  Bounty,  p.  8. 

«  Burnet's  Hist,  of  his  Own  Times,  »  Burnet's  On-n  Times,  ii.  655. 
ii.   369.    It  was    at   first,   however. 


CH.  I.  DECADENCE   OF   THE  CHURCH.  87 

moment  its  own  interests  were  touched;  its  vacillation  and 
ultimate  disloyalty  when  the  Government  of  William  was 
established;  the  non-juror  schism  which  divided  its  influence, 
withdrew  from  it  many  of  its  most  energetic  teachers,  and 
affixed  an  imputation  of  time-serving  on  those  who  remained ; 
the  Toleration  Act,  which  enabled  Dissenters  to  celebrate  their 
worship  under  the  protection  of  the  law ;  and  lastly,  the  ab- 
juration oath,  which  brought  into  strong  i-elief  the  contrast 
between  the  principles  and  the  conduct  of  a  large  proportion 
of  the  clergy,  were  all  steps  in  emancipating  England  from 
ecclesiastical  despotism.  It  was  impossible  to  disguise  the 
fact  that  the  Government  was  based  upon  and  could  only  be 
justified  by  principles  directly  antagonistic  to  those  which  the 
majority  of  the  clergy  had  taught  as  essential  doctrines  of  their 
Church. 

There  was  one  other  agency  at  work  which  was  partly 
favourable  and  partly  unfavourable  to  the  Church.  There 
existed  among  the  clergy  a  small  body  of  able  and  enlightened 
men  who  had  adopted  the  principle?  of  Locke  and  Chilling- 
worth,  who  cordially  welcomed  the  civil  and  religious  liberty 
established  by  the  Eevolution,  and  who,  regarding  with  con- 
siderable contempt  the  minute  questions  that  created  such 
animosity  between  the  High  Church  clergy  and  the  Dis- 
senters, were  themselves  hated  by  their  brethren  with  all  the 
virulence  of  theological  rancour.  The  most  prominent,  and 
to  the  majority  of  the  clergy  the  most  obnoxious  of  them, 
was  Burnet,  whose  promotion  to  the  bishopric  of  Salisbury 
was  the  first  and  most  significant  of  the  Church  appointments 
of  William.  Scarcely  any  other  figtue  in  English  ecclesiastical 
history  has  been  so  fully  portrayed,  and  the  lines  of  his  cha- 
racter are  indeed  too  broad  and  clear  to  be  overlooked.  Xo 
one  can  question  that  he  was  vain,  pushing,  boisterous,  indis- 
creet, and  inquisitive,  overflowing  with  animal  spirits  and 
superabundant  energy,  singularly  deficient  in  the  tact,  de- 
licacy, reticence,  and  decorum  that  are  needed  in  a  great 
ecclesiastical  position.      Having  thrown  himself,  with  all  the 


88  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

enthusiasm  of  his  nature,  into  the  cause  of  the  Eevolution  from 
the  very  beginning  of  the  design,  he  became  one  of  the  most 
active  politicians  of  his  time.  He  was  a  constant  pamphleteer 
and  debater.  On  at  least  one  occasion,  when  he  advocated  the 
Act  of  Attainder  that  brought  Sir  John  Fenwick  to  the  scaflfold, 
he  stooped  to  services  that  were  very  little  in  harmony  with  his 
profession.  He  was  one  of  the  last  writers  of  authority  who  coun- 
tenanced the  fable  of  the  supposititious  birth  of  the  Pretender, 
and  in  many  other  points  he  allowed  the  passions  of  a  vio- 
lent partizan  to  discolour  that  brilliant  history  which  is  one  of 
the  most  authentic  records  of  the  times  of  the  Eevolution.  But 
if  his  faults  were  very  manifest,  they  were  much  more  than 
balanced  by  great  virtues  and  splendid  acquirements.  He  was  a 
man  of  real  honesty  and  indomitable  courage  ;  of  a  kind,  generous, 
and  affectionate  nature,  of  fervent  piety,  of  wide  sympathies, 
of  rare  tolerance.  In  the  time  of  the  Stuarts  he  had  more  than 
once  refused  lucrative  employments  through  conscientious  mo- 
tives ;  he  had  boldly  remonstrated  with  Charles  upon  his  vices ; 
he  had  reclaimed  the  brilliant  Rochester  to  the  paths  of  virtue ; 
he  was  one  of  the  very  few  Whigs  who  never  countenanced  the 
delusion  of  the  Popish  plot.  He  was  the  friend  of  Russell, 
whom  he  attended  on  the  scaffold.  He  had  received  the 
thanks  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament  for  the  publication  of  that 
great  '  History  of  the  Reformation,'  which  was  one  of  the 
strongest  and  most  enduring  barriers  to  the  Catholic  tendencies 
of  the  age  of  the  Stuarts.  Raised  to  power  by  the  Revolution, 
he  made  it  the  supreme  object  of  his  life  to  extend  religious 
liberty  to  all  English  Protestants,  and,  if  possible,  to  bring  the 
great  Nonconforming  bodies  into  union  with  the  Church.  His 
own  mother  had  been  an  ardent  Presbyterian.  In  Holland  and 
in  Switzerland  he  had  formed  intimate  connections  with  members 
of  different  creeds ;  and,  while  maintaining  a  strong  and  fer- 
vent orthodoxy  of  doctrinal  belief,  he  soon  convinced  himself 
that  the  points  of  discipline  or  ceremony  that  chiefly  divided 
the  Established  Church  from  Nonconformity  were  immaterial, 
and  he  was  quite  ready  to  purchase  xmity  by  surrendering  the 


CH.  T.  BURNET.  89 

cross  at  baptism,  the  surplice,  and  the  custom  of  chanting  prayers, 
and  even  by  abandoning  or  modifying  the  subscription  to  the 
Articles.  With  these  principles  he  was  naturally  the  foremost 
advocate  of  every  measure  for  removing  the  disabilities  of  the 
Dissenters,  while  on  the  other  hand,  he  tried  to  save  the  High 
Church  clergy  from  the  obligation  of  taking  the  abjuration 
oath  ;  and  although  on  grounds  of  political  necessity  he  supported 
the  laws  against  the  Catholics,  and  the  expulsion  of  the  non- 
jurors, he  is  said,  in  particular  instances,  to  have  shown  much 
kindness  to  members  of  both  bodies.  He  also  laboured  alone 
in  1709  to  abolish  the  penalty  of  confiscation  for  treason,  which 
ruined  the  children  of  Jacobites  for  the  faults  of  their  parents. 
Hardly  any  other  member  of  the  Whig  party  excited  such 
violent  hostility.  During  his  life  he  was  the  constant  object  of 
the  most  scm-rilous  abuse.  His  coffin  was  insulted  by  the  mob 
as  it  was  borne  to  the  tomb,^  and  his  memory  has  been  pur- 
sued, even  to  our  own  day,  with  implacable  hatred  by  a  large 
section  of  his  brethren.  His  eminently  masculine  mind  looked 
down  with  undisguised  contempt  on  the  questions  that  were 
most  dear  to  the  Church,  and  he  never  lost  an  opportunity  of 
expressing  his  indignation  at  the  perpetual  attempts  that  were 
made  to  excite  popular  animosity  against  the  Dissenters,  and 
at  the  pretensions  to  sacerdotal  power  which  were  the  root  and 
the  essence  of  the  High  Church  teaching.  At  the  same  time 
bis  bitterest  detractors  were  unable  with  any  colour  of  reason 
to  deny  either  his  talents,  his  piety,  or  the  great  services 
he  rendered  to  the  Church.  In  intellectual  ability,  Atterbury 
and  Swift  could  alone,  in  the  High  Church  ranks,  be  com- 
pared with  him ;  but  Atterbury  was  a  mere  brilliant  incen- 
diary, and  was  tainted  with  the  guilt  of  the  most  deliberate 
perjury  ;  while  Swift  was  evidently  wholly  unsuited  to  his  pro- 
fession, and  his  splendid  but  morbid  genius  was  fatally  stained 
by  coarseness,  scurrility,  and  profanity.  Burnet,  whatever  may 
have  been  his  faults,  had  at  least  never  written  a  line  at  which 

'  See  Gentleman's  Magazine,  1788,  p.  952. 


90 


ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY. 


CH.  I. 


the  most  modest  need  blush,  and  he  was  one  of  the  most  active 
and  laborious  clergymen,  one  of  the  most  considerable  theo- 
logians, one  of  the  ablest  religious  writers  in  the  Church.  His 
work  on  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  is  perhaps  the  most  accredited 
exposition  of  the  doctrines  of  Anglicanism.  He  had  originally 
suggested  to  Mary  the  scheme  of  applying  the  firstfruits  to  the 
augmentation  of  small  livings,  which  was  afterwards  carried 
out  by  Anne.  His  influence  probably  contributed  more  than 
any  other  single  cause  to  prevent  the  Whig  party  from  being 
wholly  severed  from  the  Church.  His  sermons,  delivered  ex- 
tempore, and  with  the  most  fervid  and  impassioned  earnestness, 
made  an  impression  which  was  remembered  long  after  with 
regret  during  the  stagnation  of  the  Hanoverian  period.^  As  a 
bishop,  his  censors  were  compelled  reluctantly  to  admit  that,  if 
no  one  took  a  lower  view  of  sacerdotal  pretensions,  no  one  in- 
sisted on,  or  himself  maintained,  a  higher  standard  of  clerical 
duty.  It  might  easily  have  been  expected  that  a  life  spent  in 
great  literary  and  political  labours  would  have  proved  a  bad 
preparation  for  the  petty  and  often  irksome  administrative 
duties  of  a  bishopric.  Burnet  himself  appears  to  have  been 
conscious  of  the  danger.  Few  things  in  religious  biography 
are  more  touching  than  the  discriminating,  delicate,  and  tender 
strokes  with  which  he  delineated  the  infirmity  of  Usher,^  who 
had  allowed  the  saintly  gentleness  of  his  temper  to  interfere 
with  the  rough  work  of  reforming  abuses,  who  flinched  too  often 
at  the  prospect  of  opposition  and  discord,  and  buried  himself 
in  private  devotions  and  profound  studies,  while  he  ought  to 
have  been  ensfasred  in  the  active  duties  of  his  diocese.  But  no  such 
charge  could  be  brought  against  Burnet.  No  English  bishop 
exhibited  a  greater  activity  in  combating  the  evil  of  pluralities ; 
in  watching  over  the  character  and  education  of  his  clergy  ;  in 
making  himself  intimately  acquainted  with  the  wants  and  cir- 


'  See  the   striking   testimony  of  paired  the  effect  of  his  speaking  in 

Speaker  Onslow,  in  a  note  to  Burnet,  the  House  of  Lords, 
ii.  721.     Dartmouth  noticed  that  the  *  Lief  of  Bedell,  pp.  85-87. 

vehemence  of  Burnet's  delivery  im- 


CH.  I.  LATITUDINARIAN   BISHOPS.  91 

cumstances  of  the  parishes  under  his  care,  than  this  great  scholar 
and  active  politician.' 

The  small  school  of  latitudinarian  divines,  among  whom 
Burnet  was  conspicuous,  counted  several  other  names  eminent 
for  learning  and  piety.     It  had  grown  up  chiefly  at  Cambridge 
at  the  time  when  Cudworth,  Henry  More,  Wilkins,  and  Thomas 
Burnet  were  the  leading  intellects  of  that  university,  and  the 
Eevolution  thrust  it  into  a  prominence  it  would  not  naturally 
have  assumed.     William,  as  might  have  been  expected,  turned 
to  it  in  the  selection  of  his  bishops ;  and  owing  to  deaths  and 
to  the  expulsion  of  the  Nonjurors,  he  had  soon  no  less  than  fifteen 
bishoprics  to  fill.     Among  the  new  prelates  were,  Patrick,  who 
was    author   of  devotional  works  which    are    still   occasionally 
read,  and  who  was  famous  for  his  skill  in  the  composition  of 
prayers ;  Cumberland,  who   will  always  be  remembered  as  the 
defender  of  the  doctrine  of  an  innate  law   of  nature  against 
the  Utilitarianism  of  Hobbes  ;  Stillingfleet,  the  antagonist  of 
Locke,  and  one  of  the  most  profound  scholars  of  his  age ;  and 
Tillotson,   who  was  incontestably  the  most  popular   of  living 
preachers.     A  great  change  had  passed  over  the  character  of 
pulpit  oratory  a  few  years  before  the  Eevolution,  chiefly  under 
the  influence  of  the  last-named  divine,  who  finally  discredited 
the  false  taste  which,  since  the  days  of  James  I.,  had  been  pre- 
valent, and  which  has  been  ascribed  in  a  great  degree  to  the  suc- 
cess and  example  of  Bishop  Andrewes.^     The  passion  for  long, 
involved  sentences,  for  multitudinous  divisions,  for  ingenious  and 
far-fetched  conceits,  and  for  great  displays  of  patristic  and  clas- 
sical learning,  passed  away,  and  a  clearer  and  less  ornate  style 
became  popular.     The  change  was  somewhat  analogous  to  that 
which  had  passed  over  English  poetry  between  the  time  of  Cowlev 
and  Donne  and  that  of  Dryden  and  Pope ;  and  over  English 

'  Nearly  everything:  that  can  be  is  in  his  own  works  and  in  his  life  by 

said  against  Bui-net  will  be  found  in  Thomas  Burnet.     I  need  hardly  refer 

the  annotations  to  the  Oxford  edition  to  the  admirable  character  of  Burnet 

of  his  history.     See  too  Hickes'  scur-  in  Macaulay's  History,  ch.  vii. 
rilous  attack  and  the  severe  criticism  ^  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  20- 

in   Lathbury's   History   of  the  Non-  21.     Evelyn's  IJiayy,  July  15,  1G83. 
jwrors,  pp.  6i}-75.     His  best  defence 


92  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  CH.  i. 

prose  between  the  time  of  Glanvil  and  Browne  and  that  of 
Addison  and  Swift.  Nor  was  it  merely  in  the  form.  Appeals 
both  to  authority  and  to  the  stronger  passions  gradually  ceased. 
The  more  doctrinal  aspects  of  religion  were  softened  down  or 
suffered  silently  to  recede,  and,  before  the  eighteenth  century 
had  much  advanced,  sermons  had  very  generally  become  mere 
moral  essays,  characterised  chiefly  by  a  cold  good  sense,  and 
appealing  almost  exclusively  to  prudential  motives.  The  essay 
writers,  whose  works  consisted  in  a  great  measure  of  short  moral 
dissertations,  set  the  literary  taste  of  the  age ;  and  they  had 
a  powerful  effect  on  the  pulpit.  The  popularity  of  the  sermons 
of  Seeker  greatly  strengthened  the  tendency,*  and  it  was  only 
towards  the  close  of  the  century  that  the  influence  of  the 
Methodist  movement,  extending  gradually  through  the  Esta- 
blished Church,  introduced  a  more  emotional,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  more  dogmatic,  type  of  preaching. 

The  results  of  these  numerous  latitudinarian  appointments 
after  the  Eevolution  were  very  remarkable.  The  bishops  as  a 
body  soon  constituted  the  most  moderate,  the  most  liberal, 
the  most  emphatically  Protestant  portion  of  the  clergy,  and  they 
had  every  disposition  to  enter  into  alliance  with  the  Dissenters. 
Burnet  had  been  the  strongest  advocate  of  the  Comprehension 
Bill,  and,  as  he  has  himself  informed  us,  he  had  no  scruple 
in  communicating  with  non-episcopal  churches  in  Holland  and 
Geneva.  Kidder  was  suspected  of  a  leaning  towards  Presby- 
terianism.  Stillingfleet,  though  in  his  later  life  he  was  much  less 
latitudinarian  than  his  colleagues,  had  accepted  a  living  in  Cam- 
bridgeshire at  a  time  when  Episcopacy  was  proscribed.  Patrick 
had  been  educated  as  a  Dissenter,  had  received  his  first  orders 
from  the  Presbytery  during  the  Commonwealth,  and  had  taken 
a  prominent  part,  in  conjunction  with  Burnet,  Tillotson,  and 
Stillingfleet,  in  the  scheme  of  comprehension.  Tillotson  him- 
self was  avowedly  of  the  school  of  Chillingworth,  and  if  we  may 
believe  the  assertion  of  Hickes,  he  had  shown  his  indifference 

'  Walpole"s  Mem.  of  George  II.  vol.  i.  pp.  65-66. 


CH.  I.  LATITUDINAEIAN   BISHOPS.  93 

to  forms  very  practically  by  allowing  communicants  to  receive 
the  sacrament  sitting,  if  they  were  foolish  enough  to  object  to 
receiving  it  kneeling.  The  measure  which  aroused  the  strongest 
clerical  indignation  in  the  reign  of  Anne  was  undoubtedly  the 
impeachment  of  Sacheverell,  but  seven  out  of  twelve  bishops 
voted  for  his  condemnation.  The  measiures  which  excited  the 
warmest  clerical  enthusiasm  were  the  Occasional  Conformity 
and  the  Schism  Acts,  but  the  majority  of  the  bishops  opposed 
the  first  Act  both  in  1703,  when  it  was  ardently  supported  by 
the  Court,  and  in  1704,  when  the  Court  held  aloof  from  it,  and 
five  bishops  signed  a  protest  against  the  second.  In  the  eyes 
of  the  majority  of  the  bishops  the  Church  of  England  was 
emphatically  a  Protestant  Church,  and  the  differences  between 
the  Establishment  and  the  chief  Nonconformist  bodies  were  on 
matters  of  comparatively  little  moment.  They  were  in  this  respect 
of  the  school  of  Leighton,  and  still  more  clearly  of  the  school  of 
Chillingworth,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  carried  with 
them  the  great  body  of  educated  laymen  in  the  towns.  Three 
men — Chillingworth,  Locke,  and  Tillotson — had  set  the  current 
of  religious  thought  in  this  class,  and  their  influence  extended 
with  but  little  abatement  through  the  greater  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  On  the  other  hand  the  great  body  of 
the  clergy,  who  hated  the  Eevolution,  the  Toleration  Act,  and 
the  Dissenters,  and  who  perceived  with  rage  and  indignation 
that  political  ascendancy  was  passing  from  their  hands,  strained 
all  their  energies  to  aggrandise  their  priestly  power,  and  to 
envenom  the  difference  between  themselves  and  the  Noncon- 
formists. The  Nonjuror  theology  represented  this  tendency 
in  its  extreme  form,  and  exercised  a  wide  influence  beyond  its 
border.  The  writers  of  this  school  taught  that  Episcopalian 
clergymen  were  as  literally  priests  as  were  the  Jewish  priests, 
though  they  belonged  not  to  the  order  of  Aaron,  but  to  the 
higher  order  of  Melchisedek  ;  that  the  communion  was  literally 
and  not  metaphorically  a  sacrifice ;  that  properly  constituted 
clergymen  had  the  power  of  uttering  words  over  the  sacred 
elements  which    produced  the  most  wonderful,  though  unfor- 


94  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

tunately  the  most  imperceptible,  of  miracles  ;  that  the  right  of 
the  clergy  to  tithes  was  of  direct  divine  origin,  antecedent  to 
and  independent  of  all  secular  legislation ;  that  the  sentence  of 
excommunication  involved  an  exclusion  from  heaven ;  that  the 
Romish  practice  of  prayers  for  the  dead  was  highly  commendable ; 
that  the  Church  of  England,  in  violently  severing  itself  from 
the  authority  of  the  Pope,  proscribing  the  religious  worship 
which   before   the  Reformation   had  been   universal  in  Chris- 
tendom, persecuting  even  to  death  numbers  who  were  guilty 
only   of  remaining  attached  to  the  old  order  of  things,  and 
branding  a  leading  portion  of  its  former  theology  as '  blasphemous 
fables  and  dangerous  deceits,'  had  done  no  act  at  all  savouring 
of  schism,  but  that  all  non-episcopal  communities  who  dissented 
from  the  Anglican  Church  were  schismatics,  guilty  of  the  sin 
and  reserved  for  the  fate  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram.  Aiming 
especially  at  sacerdotal  power,  these  theologians  had  naturally 
a  strong  leaning  towards  the  communities  in  which  that  power 
had  been  most  successfully  claimed,  and  negotiations  were  accord- 
ingly at  one  time  opened  for  union  with  the  Grallican,  at  an- 
other with  the  Eastern  Church.     Some  of  them  contended  that 
all  baptisms  except  those  by  Episcopalian  clergymen  were  not 
only  irregular  but  invalid,  and  that  therefore  Dissenters  had  no 
kind  of  title  to  be  regarded  as  Christians.     Brett,  some  time 
before  he  joined  the  sect,  preached  and   published  a  sermon 
maintaining  that  repentance  itself  was  useless  unless  it  were  fol- 
lowed by  priestly  absolution,  which  could  only  be  administered 
by  an  Episcopalian  clergyman,  and  both  Dodwell  and  Lesley 
were  of  opinion  that  such  absolution  was  essential  to  salvation. 
The  former  of  these  writers,  who  was  perhaps  the  most  learned 
of  the  party,  contended  in  one  of  his  works  that  '  there  is  no 
communicating  with  the  Father  or  the  Son  but  by  communion 
with  the  bishops  ;'  in  another  that  all  marriages  between  mem- 
bers of  different  religious  creeds  are  of  the  nature  of  adultery ; 
in  a  third  that  even  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  ordinarily 
dependent  upon  the   intervention   of  a   bishop.      Our    souls, 
he   thought,  are  naturally  mortal,  but   become  immortal   by 


CH.  I.  DISSENSIONS  IN   TBE   CHURCH.  95 

baptism,  if  administered  by  an  Episcopalian  clergyman.  Pagans 
and  unbaptised  infants  cease  to  exist  at  death  ;  but  Dissenters 
who  have  neglected  to  enter  the  Episcopalian  fold  are  kept 
alive  by  a  special  exercise  of  the  divine  power  in  order  that 
they  may  be,  after  death,  eternally  damned.* 

It  was  in  this  conflict  of  opinions  during  the  reign  of  Anne 
that  the  terms  High  and  Low  Church  first  came  into  use,^  and 
it  is  a  very  remarkable  fact  that  the  episcopacy  was  the  special 
representative  of  the  latter.  The  one  party,  which  included 
many  grades  of  sacerdotal  pretension,  and  was  characterised  by 
intense  hatred  of  Dissenters,  carried  with  it  the  sympathy  of 
the  great  body  of  the  country  clergy,  of  the  country  gentry,  and 
of  the  poor.  The  other  party  consisted  of  perhaps  one-tenth  of 
the  clergy,^  but  it  contained  a  very  disproportionate  number  of 
adherents  of  high  position  and  of  great  ability,  and  it  exercised 
a  commanding  influence  over  the  educated  classes  in  the  towns. 
The  co-existence  of  these  two  schools  adapted  to  different  orders 
of  mind  and  education  may  perhaps  have  in  some  cases  extended 
the  religious  influence  of  the  Chiirch,  but  it  in  a  great  degree 
paralysed  its  political  action.  One  feature  of  the  struggle  has 
been  curiously  reproduced  in  our  own  day.  It  might  have 
been  imagined  from  the  solemnity  of  the  ordination  vow, 
and  from  the  peculiar  sanctity  supposed  to  attach  to  the  clerical 
profession,  that  clergymen  would  be  distinguished  from  lawyers, 
soldiers,  and  members  of  other  mere  secular  professions  by 
their  deference  and  obedience  to  their  superiors.  It  might 
have  been  imagined  that  this  would  have  been  especially  true 
of  men  who  were  continually  preaching  the  duty  of  passive 
obedience  in  the  sphere  of  politics,  and  the  trauscendant  and 

'   See   Dodwell's    One  Priesthood,  the  other  Nonjuror  notions,  see  es- 

his   Discourse     on  the    Obligation  to  pecially  the  works  of  Hickes,  Lesley, 

Marry   within  the   True  Communion,  and  Brett.     Lathbury,  in  his  History 

annexed  to  Lesley's  Sermon  against  of  the    Nonjurors,    has    summarised 

Mixed  Marriages,  and  his   Discourse  many  of  their  works.  See  too  Burnet "s 

on  the  Soul  '  ivherein  is  proved  that  Onn  Times,  n.&0^,Q(i\. 
none   hare  the  poner  of   giving   this  ^  Burnet,  ii.  347. 

Divine  immoi-talising   spirit  since  the  »  Macaulay. 

apostles,    hut   only   the  bishops.'     For 


96  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  i. 

almost    divine   prerogatives  of  episcopacy  in    the  sphere    of 
religion.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  this  has  not  been  the 
case.     If  the  most   constant,   contemptuous,  and  ostentatious 
defiance  both  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  be  a  result 
of  the  Protestant  principle  of  private  judgment,  it  may   be 
truly  said  that  the  extreme  High  Church  party,  in  more  than 
one   period  of  its  history,  has  shown  itself,  in  this  respect  at 
least,  the  most  Protestant  of  sects.     While  idolising  episcopacy 
in  the  abstract,  its  members  have  made  it  a  main  object  of  their 
policy  to  bring  most  existing  bishops  into  contempt,  and  their 
polemical  writings  have  been  conspicuous,  even  in  theological 
literature,  for  their  feminine  spitefulness,  and  for  their  reckless- 
ness of  assertion.     The  last  days  of  Tillotson  were  altogether 
embittered  by  the  stream  of  calumny,  invective,  and  lampoons 
of  which  he  was  the  object.  One  favourite  falsehood,  repeated  in 
spite  of  the  clearest  disproof,  was  that  he  had  never  been  baptised. 
He  was  charged,  without  a  shadow  of  foundation,  with  infamous 
conduct  during  his  collegiate  life.     He  was  accused  of  Hobbism. 
He  was  accused,  like  Burnet  and  Patrick,  of  being  a  Socinian, 
though  the  plainest  passages  were  cited  from  his  writings,  as 
well  as  from  those  of  his  colleagues,  asserting  the  divinity  of 
Christ.     One  writer,  who  was  eulogised  by  Hickes  as  a  person 
*  of  great  candour  and  judgment,'  described  the  Archbishop  as 
'  an  atheist  as  much  as  a  man  could  be,  though  the  gravest  cer- 
tainly that  ever  was.'  ^     Nor  was  this  a  mere  transient  ebullition 
of  scurrility.      All  through  the  reign  of  Anne,  and  for  several 
years  of  the  Hanoverian  period,  the  bishops  were  tlie  objects  of 
the  incessant  and  virulent  attacks  of  the  High  Church  party 
Bishops  complained  pathetically  in  Parliament  of  the  factions 
formed  and  fomented  in  their  dioceses  by  their  own  clergy,  '  of 
the  opprobrious  names  the  clergy  gave  their  bishops,  and  the 
calumnies  they  laid  on  them,  as  if  they  were  in  a  plot  to  destroy 

*  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  269.  do^vnright   atheist."  .  .  .  Tliis   when 

Dr.  Jortin  says,  '  I  heard  Dr.  B.  say  I   was   young   was   sound,  orthodox, 

in  a  sermon,  "If  anyone  denies  the  and    fashionable  doctrine.' — Jortin's 

uninterrupted  succession  of  bishops,  'fi-acts,  i.  436. 
I  shall  not  scruple  to    call  him  a 


CH.  1.  DISPUTES   IN   CONVOCATION.  97 

the  Church.'  •  '  One  would  be  provoked  by  the  late  behaviour 
of  the  bishops,'  said  a  prominent  Tory  member  under  Anne,  '  to 
bring  in  a  bill  for  the  toleration  of  episcopacy,  for,  since  they 
are  of  just  the  same  principles  with  the  Dissenters,  it  is  but 
just,  I  think,  that  they  should  stand  on  the  same  foot.'  ^  A 
satirist  of  the  day  faithfully  and  wittily  described  the  prevailing 
High  Church  sentiments  when  he  represented  the  Tory  fox- 
hunter  thinking  the  neighbouring  shire  very  happy  in  having 
'  scarce  a  Presbyterian  in  it — except  the  bishop ! ' ' 

The  antagonism  between  the  higher  and  lower  clergy  was 
very  apparent  in  Convocation.     This  body,  from  the  time  when 
it  was  deprived  of  its  taxing  fimctions,  had  sunk  into  insignifi- 
cance.    Having  crushed  the  scheme  of  William  for  uniting  the 
Dissenters  with  the  Church,  a  period  of  ten  years  elapsed  before 
it  again  sat.     The  clergy,  however,  at  last  grew  impatient.    An 
anonymous  '  Letter  to  a  Convocation  Man,'  which  appeared  in 
1696,  asserting  the  right  of  Convocation  to  meet  for  the  trans- 
action of  business  whenever  the  lay  Parliament  was  summoned, 
excited  a  violent  controversy  in  the  ecclesiastical  world,  which 
raged   for   several   years,  and  in  which  the  most   remarkable 
disputants  were  Wake  and   Kennet  on  the  side    of  the  civil 
power,  and  Atterbury  on  the  side  of  Convocation.     In  1701  the 
two  Houses  of  Convocation  were  again  summoned  to  meet,  and 
they   immediately  plunged    into    a   contest.     They   wrangled 
about  the  limits  of  their  authority,  about  the  right  of  the  Lower 
House  to  adjourn  or  prolong  its  debates  independently  of  the 
Upper  House,  about  an  address  which  the  Lower  House  desired 
to  present  on  the  accession  of  Anne,  reflecting  injuriously  upon 
her  predecessor,  about  the  right  of  Convocation  to  pass  judicial 
censures    on  men  and  books,  about  several  minute  points   of 
order.     The  Lower  House   condemned  Burnet's   book  on  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  which  is  now  one  of  the  classics  of  the 
Church.     It  censured  at  diflferent  periods  Toland,  Clarke,  and 

•  Sec,    e.g.f    the     complaints    of  *  Pari.  Hist.  vi.  154. 

Patrick,  Houg}i,  and  Burnet.     Pari.  *  Freeholder,  No.  22. 

Hist.  vi.  496-497. 

■VOL.  I.  ^ 


98  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

Whiston.  It  passed  resolutions  lamenting  the  immorality  of 
the  age,  denouncing  the  theatre,  and  pointing  out  that  a 
Unitarian  congregation  had  been  allowed  to  meet,  and  that 
Popish  and  Quaker  books  were  disseminated.  It  also,  in  con- 
junction with  the  Upper  House,  drew  up  some  forms  of  prayer 
for  special  occasions  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  its  performances  were 
so  trivial,  and  the  tone  of  the  Lower  House  to  the  bishops  was 
so  petulant,  that  it  served  chiefly  to  discredit  the  character  and 
to  impair  the  influence  of  the  Church. 

These  considerations  will,  I  hope,  be  sufficient  to  explain 
why  it  was  that  the  Church  party,  though  it  was  naturally 
incomparably  the  most  powerfid  in  England,  and  was  in  general 
animated  by  a  spirit  of  intense  Toryism,  was  unable  to  over- 
throw the  religious  settlement  that  had  been  made  at  the 
Revolution.  That  the  danger  was  very  serious  cannot  reason- 
ably be  denied.  Politics  had  passed  into  the  pulpit  to  a 
degree  unknown  in  England  since  the  Commonwealth.'  The 
Toleration  Act,  the  establishment  of  the  Kirk  in  Scotland,  and 
perhaps  still  more  the  seminaries  which,  on  account  of  their 
exclusion  from  the  Universities,  the  Dissenters  had  lately  set  up 
for  the  education  of  their  sons,  were  the  object  of  the  bitterest 
hatred  of  the  High  Church  party.  But  the  efforts  of  that  party 
were  only  very  partially  successful.  In  Scotland,  although  there 
were  some  thoughts  of  the  restoration  of  Episcopacy,'^  the  new  esta- 
blishment was  confirmed  by  the  Union,  but  the  Tories  carried  in 
1712  a  very  righteous  Act  securing  toleration  to  the  Scotch  Epis- 
copalians, as  well  as  an  Act  which  has  proved  fertile  in  division, 
even  to  our  own  day,  taking  away  from  the  Presbyterian  elders 
and  heritors  in  each  parish  the  right  of  choosing  tlieir  ministers, 
which  had  been  granted  them  at  the  Eevolution,  and  restoring 


*  •  Les  ecclesiastiques  auroient  en  que  les  deux  partis  croyent  trouver 

meme    temps    grand    besoin    d"une  tour    a  tour  leur    conte  dans  cette 

reforme,  mais  personne  veut  toucher  metode.' — Baron  de  Botlimar  to  the 

icy  a  une  corde   si  delicate ;   ils  se  Electress     Sophia,    April     10,    1711. 

melent  tous  de  politique  ;    c'est   la  Kemble's  State  Papers,  p.  480. 
morale    qu'ils    traitent    dans    leur  "  See   Stanhope's   Hist,  of  Queen 

sermon.    On  I'abolira  dautant  moins  A nne,  i.  97. 


CH.  1,  TORY   CHUKCH   LEGISLATION.  99 

in  a  restricted  form  the  old  system  of  lay  patronage.  A  tbird 
measure,  which  would  appear  almost  too  trivial  to  be  noticed, 
were  it  not  for  the  violent  outcry  it  created  among  the  more 
rigid  Presbyterians,  revived  the  old  '  Yule  Vacance,'  or  Christmas 
holidays,  in  the  law  courts,  and  also  made  the  30th  of  January  a 
legal  holiday.  In  Ireland  the  worst  of  the  penal  laws,  which  in 
this  reign  were  enacted  against  the  Catholics,  originated  with  the 
Whig  party,  but  the  imposition  of  the  sacramental  test  on  the 
Irish  Protestant  Dissenters,  though  it  took  place  at  a  time  when 
the  Tory  power  was  tottering,  was  probably  due  to  Tory  influence. 
The  history  of  this  measure  is  a  curious  one.  The  Irish  Par- 
liament in  1703  having  carried  an  atrocious  penal  law  against  the 
Catholics,  sent  it  over  to  England  for  the  necessary  ratification. 
It  was  returned,  with  an  additional  clause  extending,  for  the  first 
time,  the  Test  Act  to  Ireland.  According  to  the  constitutional 
arrangements  then  prevailing,  the  Irish  Parliament  could  not 
alter  a  Bill  returned  from  England,  though  it  might  reject 
it  altogether,  and,  in  order  to  save  the  anti-Popery  clauses  of 
the  Bill,  it  reluctantly  accepted  the  test  clause.  Burnet 
ascribes  the  introduction  of  the  clause  to  the  desire  of  t)ie 
English  ministers  to  throw  out  the  whole  Bill,  which  they 
imagined  the  Irish  Parliament  would  refuse  to  ratify  if  bur- 
dened with  the  test,^  but  this  explanation  is  very  improbable. 
The  Irish  House  of  Commons  only  contained  ten  or  twelve 
Presbyterians.  It  had  recently  shown  its  hostility  to  the 
Presbyterians  by  voting  the  Regium  Donum  an  unnecessary 
expense,  and,  although  it  had  not  demanded  the  test,  there 
was  no  reason  to  believe  it  would  make  any  serious  resistance 
to  its  imposition.'^  The  simplest  explanation  is  probably  the 
true  one.  The  ministry  consisted  of  two  parts,  the  party  of 
Godolphin  and  Marlborough,  who,  on  the  ground  of  foreign 
policy,  but  on  this  alone,  were  rapidly  approximating  to  the 
Whigs,  and  the  party  of  Nottingham,  who  was  vehemently- 
Tory,  and  who  made  it  the  very  first  object  of  his  home  policy 

•  Hisi.  of  his  Own  Time,  ii.  361-  ^  Killen's  Ecclesiastical    Hist,  of 

362.  Ireland,  ii,  191,  198. 


100  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  i. 

to  increase  the  stringency  of  the  Test  Act.  These  two  sections 
were  rapidly  diverging,  and  it  was  only  by  much  management 
and  compromise  that  they  were  kept  together.  It  is  probable 
the  Irish  Test  Act  was  due  to  the  influence  of  Nottingham,  and 
was  accepted  the  more  readily  as  it  applied  to  a  country  which 
had  then  no  weight  in  English  politics,  and  excited  no  interest 
in  the  English  mind.^  In  the  same  spirit  the  Tory  ministry, 
in  the  closing  years  of  Anne,  suspended  the  Regium  Donum- 
a  small  annual  endowment  which  William  had  given  towards 
the  support  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  in  Ireland.  In 
England  a  Bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  Act  naturalising  foreign 
Protestants  was  carried  through  the  Commons  in  1711,  but 
rejected  by  the  Lords.  In  the  following  year,  however,  it 
became  law,  and  the  .Tory  House  of  Commons  in  1711  also 
manifested  its  ecclesiastical  zeal  by  voting  a  duty  of  Is.  on 
every  chaldron  of  coal  for  three  years,  to  be  applied  to  the 
erection  of  fifty  new  churches  in  London.'^ 

The  subject,  however, around  which  the  ecclesiastical  struggle 
raged  most  fiercely  was  the  Occasional  Conformity  Bill.  The 
Test  Act  making  the  reception  of  the  Anglican  Sacrament  a 
necessary  qualification  for  becoming  a  member  of  corporations, 
and  for  the  enjoyment  of  most  civil  offices,  was  very  efficacious 
in  excluding  Catholics,  but  was  altogether  insufficient  to 
exclude  moderate  Dissenters,  whose  nonconformity  was  solely 
due  to  a  preference  for  a  presbyterian  to  an  episcopal  form  of 

•  According  to  Calamy  the  clause  to  Christianity  that  in  many  towns 

'  was  commonly  said  to  have  been  where  there  is  a  prodigious  increase 

inserted  here  in  Council  by  the  Lords  in  the  number  of  houses  and  inhabit- 

Nottingham  and  Rochester,  after  the  ants,  so  little  care  should  be  taken 

Bill  was  sent  from  Ireland.'  Calamy's  for  the  building  of  churches,  that  five 

Life,  ii.  28.     See  too  Wilson's  Life  of  parts  in  six  of  the  people  are  abso- 

Befoe,  ii.  186-190.  lulely  hindered  from  hearing  Divine 

-  A  similar  duty  had  formerly  been  service  ?    Particularly  here  in  London, 

employed    in    building    St.    Paul's.  where  a  single  minister  with  one  or  two 

Somers'  Tracts,  xii.   p.  328.     Swift,  sorry  curates,  has  the  care  sometimes  of 

in  1709,  had  forcibly  called  attention  above  20,000 souls  incumbent  onhim  — 

to  the  want  in  a  passage  which  is  a  neglect  of  religion  so  ignominious, 

said  to  have  given  rise  to  the  bill.  in  my  opinion,  that  it  can  hardly  be 

'  Parliament    ought    to    take    under  equalled    in     any    civilised    age    or 

consideration  whether  it  be  not   a  country.' — A  Project  f(yi' the  Advance- 

shame  to  our  country  and  a  scandal  vient  of  Religion. 


CH.  I.  THE   OCCASIONAL   CONFOKMITY  BILL.  101 

worship,  or  to  disagreement  with  some  petty  detail  in  the 
church  discipline  or  doctrine.  Such  men,  while  habitually 
attending  their  own  places  of  worship,  had  no  scruple  about 
occasionally  entering  an  Anglican  church,  or  receiving  the 
sacrament  from  an  Anglican  clergyman.  The  Independents,  it 
is  true,  and  some  of  the  Baptists,  censured  this  practice,  and 
Defoe  wrote  vehemently  against  it,  but  it  was  very  general,  and 
was  supported  by  a  long  list  of  imposing  authorities.  It  was 
remembered  that  the  very  year  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity  the 
principal  ejected  ministers  in  London  had  met  together  and 
resolved  that  they  would  occasionally  attend  the  services  of 
the  Anglican  Church  and  communicate  at  its  altars.^  The 
great  names  of  Baxter,  Howe,  and  Henry  might  be  cited 
in  favour  of  occasional  conformity,  and  their  opinion  was 
adopted  by  the  whole  body  of  the  Presbyterians.  In  the  city 
of  London  the  Dissenters  were  numerous  and  opulent,  and 
they  soon  acquired  an  important  place  in  the  Corporation. 
Sir  John  Shorter,  who  became  Lord  Mayor  of  London  in 
the  year  of  the  Eevolution,  was  a  Dissenter,  and,  having  died 
during  his  year  of  office,  his  place  was  supplied  by  Sir  John 
Eyles,  who  was  of  the  same  persuasion.  Sir  Humphry  Edwin, 
who  was  also  a  Presbyterian,  was  elected  Lord  Mayor  in  1697, 
and  he  greatly  strengthened  the  growing  feeling  against  occa- 
sional conformity  by  very  imprudently  going  in  state,  with  the 
regalia  of  the  City,  to  a  Dissenting  meeting-house.  From  this 
time  the  High  Church  party  made  the  prohibition  of  occasional 
conformity  a  main  object  of  their  policy.  Another  Dissenter, 
Sir  John  Abney,  became  Lord  Mayor  in  1701,  and  in  the 
following  year  the  question  was  brought  into  Parliament.  In 
1702,  in  1703,  and  in  1704,  measures  for  suppressing  occasional 
conformity  were  carried  through  the  Commons,  but  on  each 
occasion  they  were  defeated  by  the  Whig  preponderance  in  the 
Lords.  In  1702  the  question  gave  rise  to  a  free  conference 
between  the  Houses.     In  1704,  as  we  have  already  seen,  an 

'  See  UnnVs  Hist,  of  Eeligious  Thought  in  England,  ii.  314. 

UNIVERSITY  OK  CALIfTJRWA 
BAMTA  BAkBARA  COLLIGE  LIBEAW 


102  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

attempt  was  unsuccessfully  made  to  tack  the  measure  to  a  Money 
Bill.  From  this  time  the  question  was  suffered  to  drop  until 
the  Saeheverell  agitation  had  annihilated  the  Whig  ministry 
and  the  Wliig  majority  in  the  Commons.  It  revived  in  1711, 
but  a  very  singular  transformation  of  parts  took  place.  The 
Tories  were  completely  in  the  ascendant  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, but  it  was  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  the  measure  was 
first  })rought  forward,  and  it  was  carried  without  a  division. 
The  explanation  of  the  change  is  very  easy.  The  Whig  party 
had  at  this  time  made  it  their  main  object  to  defeat  the  nego- 
tiations that  led  to  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  A  section  of  the 
extreme  Tories,  guided  by  Nottingham,  concurred  with  this 
view,  but  they  made  it  the  condition  of  alliance  that  the 
Occasional  Conformity  Bill  should  be  accepted  by  the  Whigs. 
The  bargain  was  made  ;  the  Dissenters  were  abandoned,  and,  on 
the  motion  of  Nottingham,  a  measure  was  carried  providing 
that  all  persons  in  places  of  profit  or  trust,  and  all  common 
councilmen  in  Corporations,  who,  while  holding  office,  were 
proved  to  have  attended  any  Nonconformist  place  of  worship, 
should  forfeit  the  place,  and  should  continue  incapable  of 
public  employment  till  they  should  depose  that  for  a  whole 
year  they  had  not  attended  a  conventicle.  The  House  of 
Commons  added  a  fine  of  40^.  which  was  to  be  paid  to  the 
informer,  and  with  this  addition  the  Bill  became  law.  Its 
effects  during  the  few  years  it  continued  in  force  were  very  in- 
considerable, for  the  great  majority  of  conspicuous  Dissenters 
remained  in  office,  abstaining  from  public  worship  in  conven- 
ticles, but  having  Dissenting  ministers  as  private  chaplains  in 
their  houses. 

The  House  of  Lords,  and  especially  the  Whig  party,  have 
been  very  bitterly  censured  for  their  desertion  of  the  Non- 
conformists on  this  occasion,  but  their  conduct  is  not,  I  think, 
incapable  of  defence.  Three  times  the  House  of  Commons,  by 
a  large  majority,  had  carried  the  Bill.  Since  the  measure  had 
last  been  introduced  the  election  of  1710  had  taken  place.  It 
had  turned  expressly  upon  Church  questions,  and  it  proved. 


CH.  I.  THE   SCHISM   ACT.  103 

beyond  all  dispute,  that  the  country  was  on  the  side  of  the  High 
Church  party.  Neither  as  a  matter  of  principle,  nor  as  a  matter 
of  policy,  ought  the  House  of  Lords  to  oppose  a  permanent  veto 
to  the  wish  of  the  great  majority  of  the  Lower  House,  when  that 
wish  clearly  reflects  the  sentiments  of  the  nation.  There  can  be 
no  question  that  the  House  of  Commons  would  have  carried  the 
measure  by  a  majority  at  least  as  large  as  in  former  years,  and  it 
was  stated  that  the  Court  was  resolved  to  use  its  utmost  powers 
to  make  it  law.  Under  these  circumstances  the  Lords  might 
justly  consider  that  they  were  consulting  their  own  dignity  by 
taking  the  first  step  when  concession  was  inevitable ;  that  a 
measure,  mitigated  in  some  of  its  provisions  by  amicable  com- 
promise, and  taking  its  rise  in  a  friendly  rather  than  an 
unfriendly  House,  was  likely  to  be  less  injurious  to  the 
Dissenters  than  a  measure  framed  by  a  hostile  party,  and  carried 
by  another  explosion  of  fimaticism ;  and,  lastly,  that  it  was  for 
the  advantage  of  the  nation  that  the  opportunity  should  not  be 
lost  of  endeavouring  by  a  coalition  of  parties  to  avert  the  great 
evils  apprehended  from  the  peace. 

The  object  of  the  Occasional  Conformity  Bill  was  to  exclude 
the  Dissenters  from  all  Government  positions  of  power,  dignity, 
or  profit.  It  was  followed  in  1714  by  the  Schism  Act,  which  was 
intended  to  crush  their  seminaries  and  deprive  them  of  the 
means  of  educating  their  children  in  their  faith.  The  semi- 
naries of  the  Dissenters  had  been  severely  noticed  in  a  dedica- 
tion of  the  second  part  of  Lord  Clarendon's  history  to  Queen 
Anne,  which  was  ascribed  to  the  pen  of  Eochester,  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  York  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  by  Bromley  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  they  wei-e  denounced  with  extraordinary 
violence,  as  schools  of  immorality  and  sedition,  by  Sacheverell, 
and  by  Samuel  Wesley,  the  father  of  the  great  founder  of  Me- 
thodism. They  appear  to  have  been  ably  conducted,  and  it  is 
a  curious  fact  that  both  Archbishop  Seeker  and  Bishop  Butler 
were  partly  educated  at  the  dissenting  academy  of  Tewkesbury.' 

'  Calamy's  Life,  ii.  503. 


104  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

The  measure  for  suppressing  them  was  one  of  the  most  tyrannical 
enacted  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it  appears  especially  shame- 
ful from  the  fact  that  those  who  took  the  most  prominent  part  in 
carrying  it  were  acting  without  the  excuse  of  religious  bigotry. 
Bolingbroke,  who  introduced  it  in  the  Lords,  and  Windham, 
who  introduced  it  in  the  Commons,  were  both  men  of  the  laxest 
principles,  and  of  the  laxest  morals,  and  it  was  finally  defended 
by  the  former  mainly  on  the  ground  that  it  was  necessary  for 
the  party  interest  of  the  Tories  to  prevent  the  propagation  of 
Dissent.^  As  carried  through  the  House  of  Commons  it  pro- 
vided that  no  one,  under  pain  of  three  months'  imprison- 
ment, should  keep  either  a  public  or  a  private  school,  or  should 
even  act  as  tutor  or  usher,  unless  he  had  obtained  a  licence 
from  the  Bishop,  had  engaged  to  conform  to  the  Anglican 
liturgy,  and  had  received  the  sacrament  in  some  Anglican 
church  within  the  year.  In  order  to  prevent  occasional  con- 
formity it  was  further  provided  that  if  a  teacher  so  qualified 
were  present  at  any  other  form  of  worship  he  should  at  once 
become  liable  to  three  months'  imprisonment,  and  should  be 
incapacitated  for  the  rest  of  his  life  from  acting  as  schoolmaster 
or  tutor.  In  order  to  prevent  latitudinarian  Anglicans  from 
teaching  Dissenting  formularies,  a  clause  was  carried,  making 
any  licensed  teacher  who  taught  any  catechism  other  than  that 
of  the  Church  of  England  liable  to  all  the  penalties  of  the  Act. 
The  Bill  was  supported  by  the  whole  weight  of  the  Tory  ministry, 
and  was  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  237  to  126  votes. 
In  the  House  of  Lords  the  feeling  against  it  was  very  strong, 
but  the  recent  creation  of  twelve  peei's  had  weakened  the 
ascendancy  of  the  Whigs.  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  on 
this  occasion  Nottingham  himself  spoke  on  the  side  of  religious 
liberty.  The  Dissenters  petitioned  to  be  heard  by  counsel 
against  the  Bill,  but  their  petition  was  rejected.  The  measure; 
having  been  defended,  among  other  reasons,  by  the  allegatioii 
that  many  children  of  Churchmen  had  been  attracted  to  Non 

'  Bolingbroke,  Letter  to  Windham. 


CH.  I.  THE   SCHISM  ACT.  105 

conformist  schools,  Halifax  moved  that  the  Dissenters  might 
have  schools  for  the  exclusive  education  of  children  of  their  own 
persuasion,  but  he  was  defeated  by  62  against  48,  and  the  Bill 
was  finally  carried  through  the  Lords  by  77  to  72.  Some 
important  clauses,  however,  were  introduced  by  the  Whig  party 
qualifying  its  severity.  They  provided  that  Dissenters  might 
have  schoolmistresses  to  teach  their  children  to  read  ;  that  the 
Act  shovdd  not  extend  to  any  person  instructing  youth  in  reading, 
writing,  or  arithmetic,  in  any  part  of  mathematics  relating  to 
navigation,  or  in  any  mechanical  art  only ;  that  tutors  in  the 
houses  of  noblemen  should  be  exempt  from  the  necessity  of  obtain- 
ing an  episcopal  licence  ;  and  that  the  infliction  of  penalties  under 
the  Act  should  be  removed  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  justices 
of  the  peace,  and  placed  under  that  of  the  superior  comts. 

The  facility  with  which  this  atrocious  Act  was  carried, 
abundantly  shows  the  danger  in  which  religious  liberty  was 
placed  in  the  latter  years  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  There 
can,  indeed,  be  little  doubt  that,  had  the  Tory  ascendancy  been 
iKit  a  little  prolonged,  the  Toleration  Act  would  have  been 
repealed,  and  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  the  purely 
political  conquests  of  the  Eevolution  would  have  survived.  The 
more,  indeed,  those  very  critical  years  are  examined  the  more 
.evident  it  becomes  on  how  slender  a  chain  of  causes  the 
political  future  of  England  then  depended.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  if,  while  the  Pretender  remained  a  Catholic,  a  son 
of  Anne  had  survived,  he  would  have  mounted  the  throne 
amid  the  acclamations  of  the  English  people,  and  would  have 
been  the  object  of  an  enthusiasm  of  unqualified  loyalty  even 
more  intense  than  that  which  was  subsequently  bestowed  upon 
George  III.  There  can  also,  I  think,  be  little  doubt  that  if, 
after  the  death  of  the  children  of  Anne,  the  Pretender  had  con- 
sented to  conform  to  the  English  Chiu-ch,  the  immense  majority 
of  the  people  would  have  reverted  irresistibly  to  the  legitimate 
heir.  It  is  less  certain,  but  far  from  improbable,  that  if  the  life 
of  the  Queen  had  been  prolonged  for  a  single  year,  the  Act  of 
Settlement  would  have  been  disregarded,  and  the  Pretender,  in 


106  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

spite  of  his  Catholicism,  would  have  been  brought  back  by  a 
Tory  ministry.  In  order,  however,  to  understand  the  position 
of  parties  at  the  time  of  the  death  of  the  Queen  it  will  be 
necessary  to  turn  from  domestic  affairs  to  foreign  politics,  and 
to  give  a  brief  outline  of  the  chief  work  of  the  Tory  ministry — 
the  negotiation  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht. 

At  the  time  when  this  momentous  measure  was  carried,  the 

political    aspects    of    the   war    had    in    some    respects    very 

materially   changed.      When    the    Whig    ministry    fell,    the 

chances  of  Philip  of  Spain  inheriting   the    crown   of  France 

were  so  remote  that  they  might  have  been  almost  disregarded, 

but  the  shadows  of  death  soon  fell  darkly  around  the  French 

King.     In  February  1710-1 1  the  Dauphin  fell  sick  of  small-pox 

complicated  with  fever,  and  after  a  short  illness  he  died,  leaving 

as  his  heir  the  young  pupil  of  Fenelon,  whose  virtues  and  solid 

acquirements  had  inspired  ardent  hopes,  only  too  soon  to  be 

overcast.     In  February  1711-12  the  wife  of  the  new  Dauphin 

was   seized   with   a   deadly    sickness,    and   in    a  few  days  she 

expired.     A  week  had  hardly  passed  when  her  husband  followed 

her  to  the  tomb,  and  in  another  month  the  elder  of  her  two 

children  was  also  dead.     Thus,  by  a  strange  fatality  which  gave 

rise  to  the  darkest  suspicions,  three  successive  heirs  to  the  French 

throne,  representing  three  successive  generations,  had,  in  little 

more  than  a  year,  been  swept  away,  and  the  old  King  and  a  sickly 

infant  alone  remained  between  Philip  and  the  crown  of  France. 

On  the  Austrian  side  the  change  was  even  more  important. 

The  Emperor  Leopold  I.,  who  began  the  war,  had  died  in  May 

1705.     His  successor,  Joseph  I.,  died  in  April  1711,  leaving  no 

son,  and  Charles,  the  Austrian  claimant,  now  wore  the  Imperial 

crown. 

The  military  conditions  in  the  meantime  had  not  been  very 
seriously  modified.  France  was  still  reduced  to  extreme  and 
abject  wretchedness.  Her  finances  were  ruined.  Her  people 
were  half  starving.  Marlborough  declared  that  in  the  villages 
through  which  he  passed  in  the  summer  of  1 7 1 0,  at  least  half 
the  inhabitants  had  perished  since  the  beginning  of  the  pre- 


CH.  I.  CONI'ERENCE  OF  GERTRUYDENBERG.  107 

cedino^  winter,  and  the  rest  looked  as  if  they  had  come  out  of 
their  graves.'  All  the  old  dreams  of  French  conquests  in  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  in  Italy,  and  in  Germany  were  dispelled, 
and  the  French  generals  were  now  struggling  desperately  and 
skilfully  to  defend  their  own  frontier.  The  campaign  of  1709 
had  been  marked  by  the  capture  of  Menin  and  Tournay  by  the 
allies,  by  the  bloody  victory  of  ]\Ialplaquet,  in  which  the  losses 
of  the  conquerors  were  nearly  double  the  losses  of  the  con- 
quered, and  finally  by  the  capture  of  ]Mons.  In  1710,  while 
the  Whig  ministry  was  still  in  power,  but  at  a  time  when  it 
was  manifestly  tottering  to  its  fall,  Lewis  had  made  one  more 
attempt  to  obtain  peace  by  the  most  ample  concessions.  The 
conferences  were  held  at  the  Dutch  fortress  of  Gertruydenberg. 
Lewis  declared  himself  ready  to  accept  the  conditions  exacted 
as  preliminaries  of  peace  in  the  preceding  year,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  article  compelling  Philip  within  two  months  to 
cede  the  Spanish  throne.  He  consented,  in  the  course  of  the 
negotiations,  to  grant  to  the  Dutch  nearly  all  the  fortresses  of 
the  French  and  Spanish  Netherlands,  including  among  others 
Ypres,  Tournay,  Lille,  Fumes,  and  even  Valenciennes,  to  cede 
Alsace  to  the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  to  destroy  the  fortifications  of 
Dunkirk,  and  those  on  the  Ehine  from  Bale  to  Philipsburg.  The 
main  difficulty  was  on  the  question  of  the  Spanish  succession. 
The  French  urged  that  Philip  would  never  voluntarily  abdicate 
unless  he  received  some  compensation  in  Italy  or  elsewhere,  and 
the  Dutch  and  English  ministers  now  seemed  inclined  to  accept 
the  proposition,  but  the  opposition  of  the  Emperor  and  of  the 
Duke  of  Savoy  was  inflexible.  The  French  troops  had  already 
been  recalled  from  Spain,  and  Lewis  consented  to  recognise 
the  Archduke  as  the  sovereign,  to  engage  to  give  no  more 
assistance  to  his  grandchild,  to  place  four  cautionary  towns  in 
the  hands  of  the  Dutch  as  a  pledge  for  the  fulfilment  of  the 
treaty,  and  even  to  pay  a  subsidy  to  the  allies  for  the  continu- 
ance of  the  war  against  Philip.    The  allies,  however,  insisted  that 

'  Coxe's  Marlhorovgh,  ch.  Ixxxviii.       the    country  by  Fenelon,  in  Martin, 
iSee,  too,  the  striking  description  of      Hist,  de  Fiance,  xiv.  528-529. 


108  ENGLAND   IN   THE    EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

he  should  join  with  them  in  driving  his  grandson  by  force  of  arms 
from  Spain,  and  on  this  article  the  negotiations  were  broken  ofif.^ 
The  English  ministers  in  this  negotiation  showed  themselves 
a  littld  more  moderate  in  their  inclinations  than  on  former 
occasions,  but  they  yielded  to  the  wish  of  the  allies,  and  the 
war  was  for  a  third  time  needlessly  and  recklessly  prolonged. 
It  is  always  an  impolitic  thing  to  impose  on  a  great  power  con- 
ditions so  ignominious  and  dishonouring  as  to  produce  enduring 
resentment,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  either  the  folly 
or  the  injustice  of  the  course  which  on  this  occasion  was  pursued. 
England  and  Holland  had  absolutely  no  advantage  to  expect 
from  the  war,  which  Lewis  was  not  prepared  to  concede.  They 
prolonged  it  in  order  to  impose  on  the  Spaniards  a  sovereign 
they  hated,  and  to  deprive  tliem  of  a  sovereign  they  adored,  in 
order  to  obtain  the  Spanish  dominions  for  a  prince  who  was 
now  the  heir  to  the  Austrian  throne,  though  a  revival  of  the 
Empire  of  Charles  V.  would  have  disturbed  the  whole  balance 
of  European  power.  If  a  general  peace  was  not  signed,  the 
war  might  have  at  least  been  narrowed  into  a  duel  between 
Austria  and  Spain,  and  in  any  case  its  object  was  almost 
unattainable.  Spain  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  one  of  those 
centralised  countries  in  which  the  capture  of  the  capital  implies 
the  subjugation  of  the  nation.  Stanhope,  who  knew  it  well, 
frankly  declared  '  that  armies  of  20,000  or  30,000  men  might 
walk  about  that  country  till  doomsday,  that  wherever  they 
came  the  people  would  submit  to  Charles  out  of  terror,  and 
as  soon  as  they  were  gone  proclaim  Philip  V.  again  out  of 
affection ;  that  to  conquer  Spain  required  a  great  army,  to  keep 
it  a  greater.' 2  The  fortunes  of  the  war  had  more  than  once 
fluctuated  violently,  but  no  success  of  the  allies  had  abated  the 
hostility  of  the  great  body  of  the  Spaniards.  When  Lewis 
withdrew  his  troops  from  Spain,  the  cause  of  Charles  was 
for  a  brief  period  completely  triumphant;  but  when,  after  the 

'  Compare  Memoires  de  Torcy,  i.       borough,  ch.  Ixxxviii. 
352-428.     Martin,  Hist,    de  France,  "  Bolingbroke's    Sketch     of    the 

2iv.  525-527.      Coxe's  Life  of  Marl-       Sistori/  of  Uarojje. 


CH.  I.  REASONS  FOR   PEACE.  1  09 

victory  of  Saragossa,  Madrid  was  for  the  second  time  occupied 
by  the  allies  in  September  1710,  it  was  found  to  be  nearly 
deserted,  almost  the  whole  active  population  having  retired 
with  Pliilip  to  Yalladolid.  When  it  became  evident  that  the 
conferences  at  Gertruydenberg  would  lead  to  no  result,  Lewis  sent 
Vendome  to  command  the  Spanish  forces.  Charles  Avas  compelled 
to  abandon  Madrid  for  Toledo,  where  his  troops  added  to  their 
unpopularity  by  burning  the  Alcazar.  He  soon  after  left  his 
army  and  retreated  with  2,000  men  to  Barcelona.  Bands  of 
guerillas  cut  off  communications  on  every  side,  and  it  was  found 
almost  impossible,  in  the  face  of  the  determined  hostility  of  the 
population,  to  obtain  either  provisions  or  information.  Stanhope, 
at  the  head  of  an  English  army  of  between  5,000  and  6,000  men, 
was  surrounded  at  Brihuega,  and  after  a  desperate  resistance 
the  whole  army  was  forced  to  sm-render.  Staremberg  had 
marched  at  the  head  of  the  Austrian  army  to  his  assistance,  but 
the  battle  of  Villaviciosa  compelled  him  to  evacuate  Aragon, 
and  to  retreat  with  great  loss  into  Catalonia,  while  at  the  same 
time  a  French  corps,  conomanded  by  Noailles,  descending  from 
Eousillon,  invested  and  captured  Gerona,  so  that,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  seaboard  of  Catalonia,  the  cause  of  Charles  at  the 
close  of  the  year  was  ruined  in  Spain.  In  the  meantime  the  cost 
of  the  war  to  England  was  rapidly  increasing,  while  her  interest 
in  the  result  had  greatly  diminished.  In  1702,  when  the  war 
began,  its  expense  for  the  year  was  estimated  at  about  3,700,000^. 
In  1706,  when  Lewis  offered  terms  more  than  fulfilling  every 
legitimate  object  of  the  war,  it  had  risen  to  nearly  5,700,000^. 
In  1711  it  was  about  6,850,000Z.^  A  heavy  debt  had  been  in- 
curred. Nearly  800  corsairs  had  sailed,  during  the  war,  from 
Dunkirk  to  prey  upon  English  and  Dutch  commerce,^  and  the 
former  had  been  severely  crippled  by  the  heavy  duties  rendered 
necessary  by  the  increasing  expenses.  Not  less  than  20,000  of 
the  allied  troops  had  been  killed  or  wounded  at  Malplaquet. 
England,  too,  which   of  all   the  allied    powers  had  the  least 

'  See  Ralph's   Use  and  Abuse    of  ■  Martin,  Hist,    de    France,  xiv. 

Parliamtnts.i.,])^.  1C7-16S.  572. 


1 10      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      ch.  i 

direct  interest  in  the  war,  bore  by  far  the  greatest  share  of 
the  burden.  Holland  had  obtained  from  England,  in  1709, 
a  treaty  guaranteeing  her,  in  return  for  a  Dutch  guarantee 
of  the  Protestant  succession,  the  right  of  garrisoning  a  long 
line  of  barrier  fortresses,  including  Nieuport,  Fumes,  Knocke, 
Ypres,  Menin,  Lille,  Tournay,  Conde,  Valenciennes,  Maubeuge, 
Charleroy,  Namur,  and  other  strong  places,  hereafter  to  be  cap- 
tured from  France,  while  some  strong  places  were  to  be  in- 
corporated absolutely  in  her  dominions.  The  war,  therefore, 
offered  her  advantages  of  the  most  vital  nature,  but  she  had 
invariably  fallen  short  of  the  proportion  of  soldiers  and  sailors 
which  at  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  she  agreed  to  contribute ; 
she  refused  even  to  prohibit  her  subjects  from  trading  with 
France,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  duty  of  one  per  cent,  for 
encouraging  her  own  privateers,  she  had  imposed  no  additional 
trade  duty  during  the  war.  The  Emperor  had  acquired  immense 
territories  in  Italy  and  Grermany,  and  he  was  fighting  for  the 
claims  of  an  Austrian  Prince  to  the  Spanish  throne ;  but  he,  too, 
as  well  as  the  Princes  of  the  Empire,  continually  fell  short  of 
the  stipulated  quota.  The  minor  powers  in  the  alliance  were 
chiefly  subsidised  by  England,  who  had  at  one  time  no  less  than 
244,000  men  in  her  pay.' 

Nor  was  this  all.  It  was  quite  evident  that  the  alliance 
must  soon  fall  to  pieces.  From  the  first  the  mutual  jealousies 
and  the  conflicting  objects  of  the  confederate  powers  had  thrown 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  military  operations,  which  it  reqviired 
all  the  genius  and  all  the  admirable  patience  and  dexterity 
of  Marlborough  and  Eugene  to  surmount.  The  absurd  habit 
adopted  by  the  Dutch,  of  sending  deputies  with  their  armies  to 
control  their  generals,  had  again  and  again  paralysed  the  allies. 

'  At  the  beginning  of  the   war  England    and  three-eighths   by   the 

England  had  agreed  to  furnish  only  States.    On  the  extent  to  which  Eng- 

40,000  men,  the  Emperor  90,000,  and  land  exceeded  and  the  other  powers 

the     States-General    no    less    than  fell  short  of  the  stipulated  proportion, 

102,000,   of    whom    42,000    were   to  see  the  Representation  of  the  House 

supply  their  garrisons,  and  60,000  to  of   Commons,   Pari.   Hist.   vi.  1095- 

act  against  the  enemy.     Of  the  ships  1105. 
five-eighths  were  to  be  supplied  by 


CH.  I.  REASONS   FOR  PEACE.  1  1  1 

INIarlborough  thus  lost  his  most  favourable  opportunity  of 
crushing  lioufllers  at  Zonhoven  in  1702.  He  was  prevented 
by  the  same  cause  from  invading  French  Flanders  in  1703,  and 
from  attacking  Villars  on  the  plain  of  Waterloo  in  1705,  though 
he  expressed  his  confident  belief  that  he  could  have  gained  a 
victory  even  more  decisive  than  Blenheim ;  and  Dutch  jealousy 
was  plausibly  said  to  have  been  the  chief  reason  why  the  war 
was  never  carried  into  the  Spanish  West  Indies,  where  conquests 
would  have  been  very  easy  and  very  lucrative  to  England.  The 
conduct  of  the  Emperor  was  no  less  open  to  censure.  In  the 
beginning  of  1707  he  had  entered  into  separate  and  secret 
negotiations  with  the  French  ;  had  concluded  with  them,  with- 
out the  consent  of  any  of  the  allies  except  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  a 
treaty  for  the  neutrality  of  Italy,  and  had  thus  enabled  them  to 
send  reinforcements  from  Lombardy  to  Spain,  which  prepared 
the  way  for  the  great  disaster  of  Almanza.  In  the  course  of 
the  same  year  he  insisted,  contrary  to  the  -wishes  of  his  allies, 
upon  sending  a  large  body  of  troops  to  conquer  Naples  for  him- 
self;  and  the  want  of  his  co-operation  led  to  the  calamitous 
failm-e  of  the  siege  of  Toulon.  There  was  hardly  an  expedi- 
tion, hardly  a  negotiation,  in  which  bickerings  and  divergent 
counsels  did  not  appear.  The  Dutch  and  the  English  were 
animated  by  the  bitterest  spirit  of  commercial  jealousy ;  and 
when  Charles  assumed  the  imperial  crown,  the  alliance  was  at 
once  placed  in  the  most  imminent  danger.  Portugal  and  Savoy 
formally  declared  that  they  would  carry  on  the  war  no  longer 
to  unite  the  crown  of  Spain  with  that  of  Austria ;  and  there  was 
probably  scarcely  a  statesman  out  of  Germany  who  considered 
such  a  union  in  itself  a  good.' 

'  See,  on  the  reasons  for  making  Europe.     Coxe's  Life  of  Marlborough, 

peace,  Swift's  Conduct  of  the  Allies,  though  written  from  the  Whig  point 

The  History  of  the  Last  Four  Years  of  view,  abundantly  illustrates   the 

of  Queen  Anne,  ascribed  to  Swift,  the  selfish  conduct  of  the  allies.  As  early 

very  forcible   Bcpresentation    of  the  as  Nov.  1710,  Bolingbroke  \\Tote  to 

House  of  Commons,  drawn  up  by  Sir  Drummond,   '"Our    trade  sinks,   and 

Thomas   Hanmcr,    Ralph's    Use    and  several  channels  of  it.  for  want  of  the 

Abuse  of  Piirlidments,  i^lGi^-lTGjBol-  usual  flux,  become  choked,  and  will 

ingbroke's  Sketch  of  the   History   of  in  time  be  lost ;  whilst  in  the  mean- 


112  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ce.  i. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  Tory  ministry  rose  to 
power.  It  was  evidently  in  the  highest  degree  their  party 
interest  to  negotiate  a  speedy  peace.  The  war  was  originally  a 
^Vhi<y  war.  It  had  been  mainly  supported  by  the  Whig  party. 
The  great  general  who  chiefly  conducted  it  had  been  the  pillar 
of  the  Whig  ministry,  and  every  victory  he  gained  redounded 
to  its  credit.  The  principal  allies  of  England  during  the 
struo-gle  had,  moreover,  shown  themselves  actively  hostile  to 
the  Tories.  When  the  change  of  ministry  was  contemplated,  the 
Emperor  wrote  to  Anne  to  dissuade  her  from  the  step  ;  and  the 
Dutch  Grovernment  directed  their  envoy  to  make  a  formal  re- 
monstrance to  the  same  effect.^  Besides  this,  it  was  a  favourite 
doctrine  of  the  Tory  leaders  that  the  large  loans  necessitated 
by  the  war  had  given  an  unnatural  importance  to  the  moneyed 
classes,  who  were  the  chief  supporters  of  the  ANTiigs,  and  who 
were  regarded  with  extreme  jealousy  by  the  country  gentry.'^ 
The  mixture  of  party  with  foreign  policy  in  times  when  a  great 
national  struggle  is  raging,  is  perhaps  the  most  serious  danger 
and  evil  attending  parliamentary  government ;  and  it  was 
shown  in  every  part  of  the  reign  of  Anne.  But  if  the  foregoing 
arguments  are  just,  it  will  appear  evident  that  in  this  case  the 
party  interest  which  led  the  Tory  ministers  to  desire  the  im- 
mediate termination  of  the  war  was  in  complete  accordance 
with  the  most  momentous  and  pressing  interests  of  the  nation. 
It  will  appear  almost  equally  evident  that  the  essential  article 
of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  which  was  the  recognition  by  Eng- 

while   the  commerce  of  Holland  ex-  26-27.     See,  too,  i.,  pp.   54^-55,   191- 

tends  itself  and  floiirishes  to  a  great  195,    and    also  his    able    letter    to 

degree.      I    can    see  no   immediate  the   Uxaminer  in   1710,   which  was 

benefit  likely  to  accrue  to  this  nation  answered  by  no  less  a  person  than 

by  the  war,    let    it    end    how,   and  the    Chancellor     Cowper.  —  Somei's' 

when  it  will,  besides  the  general  ad-  Tracts,  xiii.  71-75. 
vantages  common  to  all  Europe   of  '  Coxe's     lAfe    of    Marlhormi<ih. 

reducing  the  French  power ;  whilst  Bolingbroke's    Letters,  i.   9,  iii.  76. 
it  is    most  apparent  that  the    rest  ^  ggg    Bolingbroke's   Letters,   ii., 

of    the    confederates  have  in  their  74,  211.     The  same  idea  frequently 

own  hands  already  very  great  addi-  occurs  in    Swift,      In  his    letter   to 

lions  of  power  and  dominion  obtained  Sir  W.   Windham,  Bolingbroke  very 

by    the    war,   and  particularly    the  frankly  admitted  that  the  peace  was  a 

States.'  —  Bolingbroke's    Letters,    i.  supreme  party  interest. 


CH.  1.  EEASONS  FOR  PEACE.  113 

land  of  Philip  as  the  sovereign  of  Spain,  was  perfectly  righteous 
and  politic.  The  permanent  maintenance  of  Charles  on  the 
Spanish  throne  was,  probably,  an  impossibility.  If  it  had  been 
eflfected,  so  great  an  accession  of  power  to  the  Empire  would 
have  been  most  dangerous  to  Europe.  No  other  solution  than 
the  recognition  of  Philip  was  possible  without  a  great  prolonga- 
tion of  the  war,  and  the  dangers  apprehended  from  that  recog- 
nition might  never  arise,  and  could  be  at  least  partially  averted. 
Philip  might  never  become  the  heir  to  the  French  throne,  and 
as  long  as  the  two  kingdoms  remained  separate,  there  was  no 
reason  to  believe  that  the  relationship  between  their  sovereigns 
would  make  Spain  the  vassal  of  France.  The  intense  national 
jealousy  of  the  Spanish  character  was  a  sufl&cient  safeguard. 
More  than  half  the  wars  which  desolated  Europe  had  been  wars 
between  sovereigns  who  were  nearly  related  ;  and  if  it  was  true 
that  Lewis  exercised  a  great  personal  ascendancy  over  Philip,  it 
was  also  true  that  Lewis  was  now  so  old  a  man,  and  his  kingdom 
so  reduced,  that  another  war  during  his  Hfetime  was  almost 
impossible.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  death  of  the  infant 
Dauphin  made  Philip  the  heir  to  the  French  throne,  a  real 
danger  would  arise ;  but  serious  measures  were  taken  by  the 
Peace  of  Utrecht  to  mitigate  it.  In  the  first  place,  Philip  made 
a  solemn  renimciation  of  his  claims  to  the  succession  of  France, 
and  that  renunciation  was  confirmed  by  the  Spanish  Cortes  and 
registered  by  the  French  Parliaments.  It  was,  it  is  true,  only 
too  probable  that  this  renunciation  would  be  disregarded  if  any 
great  political  end  was  to  be  attained.  The  examples  of  such 
a  course  were  only  too  recent  and  glaring,  and  in  this  case  an 
admirable  pretext  was  already  furnished.  French  lawyers  had 
laid  down  the  doctrine  that  such  a  renunciation,  by  the  fimda- 
menfal  laws  of  France,  would  be  null  and  invalid  ;  that  the  next 
prince  to  the  throne  is  necessarily  the  heir,  by  the  right  of  birth  ; 
and  that  no  political  act  of  his  own,  or  of  the  sovereign,  could 
divest  him  of  his  title.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  nego- 
tiation Torcy  had  maintained  this  doctrine  in  his  correspon- 
dence with  St.  John,  and  if  it  was  found  convenient  it  would 
VOL.  I.  9 


114  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

probably  be  revived.  But  even  in  case  Philip  became  the 
heir  to  the  French  throne,  it  by  no  means  followed  that  peace 
would  be  broken ;  for,  as  a  mere  matter  of  policy,  it  was  pro- 
bable that  Philip  would  remain  faithful  to  his  engagement, 
and  would  content  himself  with  one  crown.  An  attempt  to 
unite  the  French  and  Spanish  thrones  would  undoubtedly  be  met 
by  another  European  coalition,  and  the  offending  sovereign 
would  be  weakened,  not  only  by  the  great  reluctance  of  the 
Spanish  people  to  become  subsidiary  to  a  more  powerful  nation, 
but  most  probably  also  by  the  divisions  of  a  disputed  succession 
in  France.  In  the  face  of  these  considerations,  there  was  a  fair 
prospect  of  the  maintenance  of  peace ;  and  even  if  events  as- 
sumed their  darkest  aspect,  the  English,  by  the  Peace  of  Utrecht, 
retained  Gibraltar,  Port  Mahon,  and  Minorca,  which  gave  them 
the  command  of  the  Mediterranean,  while  the  Spanish  posses- 
sions in  Italy  and  the  Netherlands  were  added  to  the  dominions 
of  the  Empire. 

For  these  reasons  the  abandonment  by  the  Tory  ministry 
of  the  articles  before  insisted  on,  requiring  Philip  to  give  up 
the  Spanish  throne,  and  Lewis  to  employ  his  arms  against  him, 
appears  perfectly  justifiable,  nor  can  we,  I  think,  remembering  the 
fate  of  the  former  negotiations,  blame  English  statesmen  very 
severely  if,  before  attempting  to  negotiate  a  formal  treaty,  they 
entered  into  some  separate  explanation  with  the  French.  Here, 
however,  the  language  of  eulogy  or  apology  must  end,  for  the 
tortuous  proceedings  that  terminated  in  the  Peace  of  Utrecht 
form,  beyond  aU  question,  one  of  the  most  shameful  pages  in 
English  history.  A  desire  for  peace  was  hardly  a  stronger 
feeling  with  the  Ministers  than  hatred  and  jealousy  of  the  Dutch, 
and  their  first  object  was  to  outwit  them  by  separate  and  clan- 
destine negotiation ;  to  obtain  for  England  a  monopoly  of  com- 
mercial privileges,  and  to  obtain  them,  in  a  great  degree,  at 
the  cost  of  the  towns  which  would  otherwise  have  been  ceded 
for  the  Dutch  barrier.  As  early  as  the  autumn  of  1710  a 
secret  negotiation  was  carried  on  with  the  French,  but  for  some 
time  the  aspect  of  the  war  was  not  very  materially  changed. 


CH.  I.  CONDUCT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  1 1  5 

For  the  first  year  after  the  new  ministry  came  to  power,  Marl- 
boroug-h  was  still  at  the  head  of  the  army,  though  his  position 
was  a  most  painful  one.  The  parliamentary  vote  of  thanks  to 
him  was  withheld  ;  his  opinion,  even  on  military  matters,  was 
ostentatiously  disregarded ;  his  wife — who  had,  indeed,  made 
herself  intolerable  to  the  Queen — was  dismissed  from  her  posts. 
Godolphin,  who,  of  all  his  political  friends,  was  most  closely 
attached  to  him,  was  falsely  and  vindictively  accused  of  having 
left  no  less  than  35,000,000^.  of  public  money  unaccounted  for,^ 
and  in  spite  of  the  urgent  protest  of  Marlborough,  more  than 
5,000  men  were  withdrawn  from  the  army  to  be  employed  in 
an  enterprise  from  which  St.  John  expected  the  most  brilliant 
results.  The  Tories  had  long  complained,  with  some  reason, 
that  the  Whig  Government  carried  on  the  war  by  land  rather 
than  by  sea,  and  in  the  centre  of  Europe,  where  England  had 
nothing  to  gain,  rather  than  in  distant  quarters,  where  her 
colonial  empire  might  be  largely  increased.  St.  John  accord- 
ingly, anticipating  one  of  the  great  enterprises  of  the  elder 
Pitt,  sent  out  ^  an  expedition,  consisting  of  twelve  ships  of  war 
and  fifty  transports,  for  the  conquest  of  Canada.  The  naval 
part  was  imder  the  command  of  Sir  Hoveden  Walker,  and  the 
soldiers  were  under  that  of  Brigadier  Hill,  the  brother  of  Mrs. 
Masham.  It  was,  however,  feebly  conducted,  and,  having  en- 
countered some  storms  and  losses  at  sea,  it  returned  without 
result. 

It  may  appear  strange  that  Marlborough  should  have  con- 
tinued in  command  in  spite  of  so  many  causes  of  irritation, 
but  he  was  implored  by  his  Whig  friends  to  do  so.  Besides 
this,  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  his  resolution  of  cha- 
racter was  not  altogether  what  it  was  ;  and  his  conduct  in  civil 
affairs  never  displayed  the  same  decision  as  his  conduct  in  the 
field.     It  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  he  might,  by 

'  Walpole  very  ably  refuted   this  to  pay-  his  funeral  expenses.     See   a 

calumny.     When  Godolphin  died  in  letter  of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough, 

the  following  year  his  whole  personal  Coxe's  Marlhorovgh,  ch.  cix. 
propertj',  after  his  debts  were  paid,  ^  May  1711. 

is  said  to  have  been  scarcely  sufficient 


116  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  i. 

a  prompt  intervention,  supported  by  a  threat  of  resignation, 
have  retarded,  if  not  prevented,  the  fall  of  Godolphin  ;  and  in 
the  period  immediately  preceding  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  he 
displayed  considerable  weakness  and  hesitation.  It  is  curious 
to  observe  that,  of  all  public  men,  he  showed  the  greatest  sen- 
sitiveness to  the  libels  of  the  press ;  and  he  complained  to 
Harley  and  St.  John,  in  terms  of  positive  anguish,  of  the  attacks 
to  which  he  was  subject.^  His  frequent  negotiations  with  both 
Hanoverians  and  Jacobites  rendered  his  position  peculiaiiy 
perplexing.  His  love  of  money  amounted  to  a  disease,  and 
made  it  difficult  for  him  to  sacrifice  his  official  emoluments. 
He  had  tried  without  success  at  the  time  when  the  Whig 
ministry  was  falling  to  obtain  from  the  Emperor  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  which  on  two  previous  occa- 
sions he  had  refused.^  He  had  the  natural  desire  of  a  great 
general  to  remain  at  the  head  of  the  army  during  the  war,  and 
of  an  adroit  politician  to  preserve  a  position  of  much  power  at 
a  time  when  the  question  of  a  disputed  succession  was  im- 
pending. He  was  so  incomparably  the  greatest  English  general 
that  it  seemed  scarcely  possible  to  displace  him,  and  at  one 
moment  there  were  symptoms  of  reconciliation  between  him- 
self and  St.  John.  In  September  1711  he  succeeded,  by  a 
masterly  movement,  in  breaking  through  the  lines  of  Villars, 
and  having  captured  Bouchain,  the  struggle  seemed  about  to 
take  a  more  decisive  form.  Quesnoy  and  Landrecies  were 
the  only  strong  places  of  the  French  barrier  that  were  now 
interposed  between  the  allies  and  a  rich  and  ©pen  country 
extending  to  the  very  walls  of  Paris.  The  Emperor  and  the 
Dutch  were  straining  all  tlieir  powers  for  a  new  effort,  and  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that,  under  the  guidance  of  Marlborough  and 
Eugene,  it  would  have  been  successful.  The  ministers,  how- 
ever, had  by  this  time  arrived  at  such  a  point  in  their  secret 
negotiations  that  they  looked  forward  to  an  immediate  peace, 
and  were  anxious,  if  possible,  to  paralyse  the  operations  of  war. 

'  Coxe's  Marlhorough,  ch,  c,  cv.  "^  Ibid,  ch.  xcvi. 


CH.  I.  PRELDIINARIES   OF  PEACE,    1711.  117 

On  September  27,  1711,  two  sets  of  preliminaries  of  peace  were 
secretly  signed.     The  first,  the  most  important,  and  by  far  the 
most  explicit,  concerned  England  mainly  or  exclusively,  were 
signed  on  the  part  of  both  England  and  France,  and  were  kept 
carefully  secret  from  the  allies.     By  these  preliminaries  the  title 
of  Anne  and  her  successors,  as  by  law  established,  was  recognised ; 
the  cession  of  Gibraltar,  Port  jNIahon,  and  Newfoundland,  with 
a  reservation  of  the  right  of  fishing  to  the  French,  was  granted 
or  confirmed  ;  the  port  and  fortifications  of  Dunkirk  were  to  be 
destroyed  at  the  peace,  France  receiving  an  equivalent  to  be 
determined  in    the   final  treaty;  a  treaty    of  commerce  with 
France  was  promised ;    the   lucrative    right  of   supplying   the 
Spanish  colonies  in  America  with  negroes  was  transferred  from 
a  French  company  to  the  English,  and  some  places  in  America 
were  assigned  to  the  English  for  the  refreshment  and  sale  of  the 
negroes.     The  other  set  of  preliminaries  which  were  communi- 
cated to  the  Dutch  and  were  signed  only  on  the  part  of  France, 
comprised  the  recognition  of  the  title  of  the  Queen  and  of  the 
succession  established  by  law,  the  article  relating  to  Dunkirk 
and  a  promise  of  commercial  advantages  for  England  and  Hol- 
land ;  they  made  no  mention  of  the  special  advantages  Eng- 
land secured  for  herself,  but  provided  that  measures  should  be 
taken  to  prevent  the  union  of  the  crowns  of  France  and  Spain  ; 
that  barriers,  the  nature  and  extent  of  which  were  as  yet  unde- 
fined, should  be  formed  for  the  Dutch  and  for  the  Empire  ;  and, 
by  a  separate  article,  that  the  places  taken  from  the  Duke  of 
Savoy  should  be  restored,  and  his  power  in  Italy  aggrandised. 
These  articles  were  communicated  by  the  English  to  the  allies 
who  were  summoned  to  a  conference  for  the  negotiation  of  a 
definite  peace. 

The  difficulties  of  the  ministers  were  very  great.  The 
Dutch,  though  they  at  length  consented  to  join  the  proposed 
conference  at  Utrecht,  expressed  strong  dissatisfaction  with  the 
preliminaries  of  which  they  had  been  apprised.  The  Emperor 
was  still  more  emphatic,  and  he  only  consented  to  take  part 
in  the  proceedings  on  condition  that  the  preliminaries   should 


118  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

be  regarded  as  mere  propositions,  without  any  binding  force. 
The  Elector  of  Hanover,  whose  judgment  had  naturally  a 
special  weight  with  English  politicians,  was  prominent  on  the 
same  side ;  and  although  the  ministers  could  count  on  a  large 
majority  in  the  Commons,  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
supported  by  Marlborough  himself,  voted  that  no  peace  could 
be  safe  or  honourable  which  left  Spain  and  the  Indies  to  a 
Bourbon  prince.  Public  opinion  received  a  severe  shock  when, 
at  the  close  of  the  year,  the  greatest  of  England's  generals 
was  removed  ignominiously  from  the  command  of  the  army, 
and  was  replaced  by  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  a  strong  Tory,  but  a 
man  of  no  military  ability.  The  conference,  however,  met  at 
Utrecht  at  the  close  of  January  1711-12,  and  early  in  the  next 
month  the  French  made  their  propositions  for  a  peace.  Lewis 
offered  to  recognise  the  Queen  of  England  and  the  succession 
established  by  law,  but  only  on  the  signature  of  peace ;  to 
destroy  the  fortifications  of  Dunkirk  after  the  peace,  on  con- 
dition of  receiving  a  satisfactory  equivalent ;  to  cede  to  Eng- 
land St.  Christopher,  Hudson's  Bay,  and  Newfoundland,  re- 
serving, however,  the  fort  of  Placentia  and  the  right  of  fishing 
around  Newfoundland,  and  receiving  again  the  whole  of  Acadia  ; 
and  he  also  undertook  to  make  a  treaty  of  commerce  with 
England,  based  on  the  principle  of  reciprocity.  When,  how- 
ever, the  question  of  the  Dutch  barrier  arose,  the  French  proposi- 
tions showed  the  enormous  change  which  had  passed  over  the 
pretensions  of  Lewis  since  the  conferences  of  Gertruydenberg. 
He  now  demanded  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  Spanish  Nether- 
lands should  be  granted  to  his  ally  the  Elector  of  Bavaria; 
and,  although  he  recognised  the  right  of  the  Dutch  to  garrison 
the  frontier  towns,  he  prescribed  limits  for  their  barrier 
wholly  different  from  those  which  had  been  guaranteed  by 
England  in  the  treaty  of  1709,  and  recognised  by  France  in 
the  conferences  of  1710.  He  demanded  the  surrender  of  both 
Lille  and  Toumay  as  an  equivalent  for  the  destruction  of  the 
harbour  of  Dunkirk.  Of  the  cession  of  Valenciennes  there 
was  no  longer  any  question.     He  offered,  it  is  true,  to  cede 


CH.  1.  DESLANDS  OF  LEWIS.  1 1 9 

Fumes,   Knocke,    Ypres,  and   Menin,  but   only  in  exchange 
for  Aire,  St.  Venant,  Eetliune,  and  Douay.      These  demands 
were  made,   though  not  a  single  success  in  Flanders  had  im- 
proved the  position  of  the  French  since  1709,  while  the  im- 
mense concession  the  allies  were  preparing  to  make  in  leaving 
Philip  undisturbed  on  the  Spanish  throne  entitled  them  to  de- 
mand that  in  other  respects  at  least  the  conditions  accepted 
in  that  year  should  be  rigidly  exacted.     The  arrogance,  as  it 
was    deemed,    of   the  French    King  excited    not   only    indi<>-- 
nation,   but  astonishment;  but  those  who  blamed  it  did  not 
know  the  secret  stipulations  by  which  England  was  now  bound 
to   France.     They  did  not  know  that  the  English   ministers 
were  on  far  more  confidential  terms  with  the  enemy  than  with 
their  allies;  that  St.    John  had  informed  the   French   nego- 
tiator that,  though  they  could  not  avoid  demanding  a  barrier 
for  the  Dutch,  they  desired  it  to  be  neither  very  extended  nor 
very  strong ;  that  he  had  specially  urged  the  French  to  stand 
firm  against  Holland,  in  order  to  resist  any  attempt  she  might 
make  to  obtain  a  share  of  the  advantages  conceded  to  Eno-land.^ 
Under  such  circumstances,  the  position  of  France  in  the  nego- 
tiations was  not  that  of  an  isolated  and  defeated  Power.     She 
had  a  weighty  ally  at  the  Council-board — an  ally  all  the  more 
valuable   because    her    position   was   una^■owed  ;    because   her 
statesmen  had  entered  upon  a  course  in  which  failure  or  even 
exposure  might  lead  to  impeachment.     The  other  French  de- 
mands'were  in  the  same  key.     Lewis  consented,  indeed,  in  the 
name  of  his  grandson,  to    the   abandonment   of  the  Spanish 
dominions  in  Italy,  wliich  were  already  in  the  hands  of  the 
allies  ;  but   he  demanded  that  the  frontiers    between  France 
and  Grermany,  between  France  and  the  territory  of  the  Duke  of 
Savoy,  and  between  Portugal  and  Spain,  should  be  re-established 
as  they  were  before  the  war.     He  consented  to  give  guarantees 
against  the  possible  union  of  the  crowns  of  France  and  Spain, 
and  to  recognise  those  titles  in  Germany  which  he  had  hitherto 

'  Torcy's  Memoirg. 


]  20  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

refused  to  acknowledge ;  but  he  demanded  in  return  that  Philip 
should  retain  the  thrones  of  Spain  and  of  the  Indies,  and  that 
the  Electors  of  Cologne  and  Bavaria  should  be  fully  re-estab- 
lished in  the  territory  and  the  position  from  which  they  had  been 
driven  by  the  war. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  such  demands,  made  after  a  long 
succession  of  crushing  defeats,  by  a  Power  which  less  than  three 
years  before  would  have  gladly  purchased  peace  by  a  complete 
abandonment  of  the  cause  of  Philip,  by  the  cession  of  all  or 
almost  all  the  strong  places  on  the  Dutch  frontier,  and  by  the 
restoration  of  Strasburg  to  the  Emperor,  should  have  been 
branded  by  the  House  of  Lords  as  scandalous,  frivolous,  and 
dishonouring  to  the  Queen  and  to  the  allies.  The  English 
ministers,  however,  were  not  discouraged,  and  they  advanced 
fearlessly  in  the  path  which  they  had  chosen.  The  course  of 
duty  before  them  at  this  time  was  very  clear.  The  terms  or 
propositions  of  peace  should  have  been  fully,  frankly,  and 
unreservedly  laid  before  the  plenipotentiaries  assembled  at 
Utrecht.  As  long  as  no  conclusion  was  arrived  at,  military 
operations  should  have  been  strenuously  pursued,  but  if  after 
mature  deliberation  England  desired  to  make  peace  on  terms 
which  were  unacceptable  to  the  allies,  she  had  a  perfect  right  to 
withdraw  formally  from  the  alliance.  Harley  and  St.  John, 
however,  though  widely  different  in  most  respects,  agreed  in 
preferring  tortuous  to  open  methods,  and  they  at  this  time 
carried  on  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Government  rather  in 
the  manner  of  conspirators  than  of  statesmen.  They  plunged 
deeper  and  deeper  into  separate  clandestine  negotiations,  and 
they  allowed  these  negotiations  to  interfere  fatally  with  military 
operations.  The  allied  army  in  Flanders  in  the  spring  of  1712 
considerably  outnumbered  that  of  Villars  which  was  opposed  to 
it,  and  although  the  English  contingent  was  feebly  commanded 
the  presence  of  Eugene  gave  great  promise  of  success.  The 
opposing  armies  were  in  close  proximity,  and  there  was  every 
reason  to  look  forward  to  brilliant  results,  when  Ormond  received 
peremptory  orders  from  St.  John  to  engage  in  no  siege  and 


CH.  I.  DEFECTION   OF  THE   ENGLISH.  121 

to  hazard  no  battle  till  further  instructions,  and  to  keep  this 
order  strictly  secret  from  the  general  with  whom  he  was  co- 
operating. A  postscript  was  added,  in  which  the  seriousness 
of  the  matter  contrasted  strangely  with  the  levity  of  the  form. 
'  I  had  almost  forgot  to  tell  your  Grace  that  communication  is 
made  of  this  order  to  the  Court  of  France,  so  that  if  the 
Marshal  de  Villars  takes,  in  any  private  way,  notice  of  it  to 
you,  your  Grace  will  answer  accordingly.'  ^  Twelve  days  later 
another  letter  directed  Ormond  to  take  the  first  step  by  sending 
a  messenger  to  Villars,'^  and  a  secret  correspondence  was  thus 
opened  between  the  English  general  and  the  enemy  who  was 
opposed  to  him  in  the  field.  The  suspicions  of  Eugene  were  at 
last  aroused.  He  perceived  an  opportunity  of  compelling  the 
enemy  either  to  fight  a  battle  at  great  disadvantage,  or  else  to 
repass  the  Somme,  and  he  at  once  prepared  a  general  attack. 
The  English  general  was  overwhelmed  with  confusion  :  he  tried 
by  excuses  that  were  palpably  futile  to  evade  the  request,  and 
he  finally  begged  a  postponement.  The  treachery  now  could 
no  longer  be  concealed.  Eugene  insisted  on  besieging  Quesnoy. 
Ormond  could  find  no  excuse,  and  yielded.  The  siege  was 
formally  begun  when  Ormond  annoimced  to  the  Austrian  com- 
mander and  to  the  Dutch  that  England  had  signed  a  suspension 
of  arms  for  two  months,  and  that  the  British  troops  and  the 
auxiliaries  who  were  subsidised  by  Great  Britain  were  about,  in 
the  face  of  the  enemy,  to  retire  from  the  confederate  army. 

These  transactions  formed  afterwards  one  of  the  most  for- 
midable of  the  articles  of  impeachment  against  Bolingbroke, 
and  they  admit  of  but  little  palliation.  The  scene  when  the  ' 
suspension  of  arms  was  announced  to  the  army  was  a  very 
memorable  one.  The  Austrian  and  Dutch  generals  protested 
in  vain.  The  subsidised  allies  loudly  declared  that  they  would 
be  no  parties  to  an  act  of  such  aggravated  treachery.  Their 
pay  was  considerably  in  arrear,  and  with  a  rare  refinement  of 
meanness  it  was  threatened  that  their  arrears  would  not  be  paid 

■       '  Bolingbroke's  Letters,n.  321  (May  10).  *  Ibid.  p.  344. 


122  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

unless  they  withdrew,  but  the  threat  with  the  great  majority 
was  unavailing-.  Among  the  British  troops  the  sentiment  was 
but  little  dififerent.  When  the  withdrawal  was  announced  at  the 
head  of  each  regiment  a  general  hiss  and  murmur  ran  through 
the  ranks.  In  order  to  prevent  the  spread  of  disaffection,  strict 
orders  were  given  that  there  should  be  no  communication  be- 
tween the  troops  who  were  to  retire  and  those  who  were  to 
remain  ;  but  yet,  in  the  words  of  a  contemporary,  the  British 
camp  resounded  '  with  curses  against  the  Duke  of  Ormond  as  a 
stupid  tool  and  general  of  straw.  The  colonels,  captains,  and  other 
brave  officers  were  so  overwhelmed  with  vexation  that  they  sat 
apart  in  their  tents,  looking  on  the  ground  for  very  shame  with 
downcast  eyes,  and  for  several  days  shrank  from  the  sight  even 

of  their  fellow  soldiers Some  left  their  colours,  to  serve 

among  the  allies,  and  others  afterwards  withdrew,  and  when- 
ever they  recollected  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  and  the  late 
glorious  times  their  eyes  filled  with  tears.' '  At  length,  on  the 
12th  of  July,  the  British  troops,  numbering  12,000  men,  and 
accompanied  only  by  four  squadrons  and  one  battalion  of  the 
Holstein  auxiliaries,  and  by  a  regiment  of  dragoons  from  the 
contingent  of  Liege,  marched  in  dejected  silence  from  the  con- 
federate camp.  The  Dutch  governors  of  Bouchain,  Douay,  and 
Tournay  refused  to  open  their  gates,  and  the  English  in  reprisal 
seized  upon  Ghent  and  Bruges.  One  of  the  terms  of  the  agree- 
ment with  France  was  that  a  British  garrison  should  at  once 
occupy  Dunkirk,  but  the  French,  alleging  that  the  greater  part  of 
th§  auxiliaries  in  the  pay  of  England  still  remained  with  the  con- 
federate army,  declared  that  the  treaty  was  broken,  and  refused 
to  open  the  gates,  nor  was  it  till  after  considerable  negotiations 
and  urgent  appeals  that  Lewis  consented,  more  as  a  matter  of 
favour  than  of  right,  to  admit  the  English  into  Dunkirk. 

This  defection  left  a  deep  stain  on  the  honour  of  England, 
and,  as  might  have  been  expected,  it  gave  a  complete  turn  to 
the  war.     Quesnoy,  it  is  true,  surrendered  on  the  very  day  of 

'  Cunningham. 


CH.  I.  DISGRACE   OF  MARLBOROUGH.  1  23 

tbe  retreat  of  Ormond,  and  Landrecies  was  besieged,  but  the 
tide  of  fortune  speedily  receded.  Yillars,  strengthened  by  the 
garrisons  of  towns  which  the  English  armistice  relieved,  attacked 
and  defeated  one  section  of  the  weakened  army  of  Eugene  at 
Denain.  Douay  was  invested  by  the  French  and  compelled  to 
surrender.  Quesnoy  was  retaken,  and  the  campaign  closed 
with  the  recapture  of  Bouchain,  the  last  great  conquest  of 
Marlborough,  Had  not  the  allies  in  the  pay  of  England  lor 
the  most  part  refused  to  abandon  the  army  of  Eugene,  it  is 
not  improbable  that  it  would  have  been  totally  destroyed. 
Immediately  after  the  battle  of  Denain  the  French  minister, 
Torcy,  wrote  in  characteristic  terms  to  St.  John  to  commu- 
nicate to  him  the  disaster  which  had  befallen  the  allies  of 
England.  '  The  King  of  France,'  he  said,  *  is  persuaded  that 
the  advantage  which  his  troops  have  obtained  will  give  the 
Queen  so  much  the  more  pleasure,  as  it  may  be  an  aid  to  over- 
come the  obstinacy  of  the  enemies  to  peace.' '  Three  months 
later  we  find  Ormond  informing  Bolingbroke  of  the  intention 
of  the  Dutch  to  attempt  the  surprise  of  Nieuport  or  Fumes. 
*  If  it  be  thought  more  for  Her  Majesty's  service  to  prevent  it,' 
he  added,  *I  am  humbly  of  opinion  some  means  should  be 
found  to  give  advice  of  it  to  Marshal  Villars.'  ^ 

While  these  events  were  taking  place,  the  Government  at 
home  had  been  pressing  on  the  peace  by  measures  of  almost 
unparalleled  violence.  Supported  by  a  large  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons  it  resolved  to  silence  or  crush  all  opposition. 
The  first  and  most  conspicuous  victim  was  Marlborough.  It  was 
alleged,  and  alleged  with  truth,  that  while  commanding  in  the 
Netherlands  he  had  during  several  years  received  an  annual  pre- 
sent of  about  6,000^.  from  the  contractor  who  supplied  his  army 
with  bread,  and  also  that  he  had  appropriated  two-and-a-half  per 
cent,  of  the  money  which  had  been  voted  by  Parliament  for  paying 
the  subsidised  troops,  and  on  these  grounds  he  was  accused  of 
peculation.     The  answer,  however,  in  ordinary  times  would  have 

'  Bolingbroke 's  Letters,  ii.  443.  *  Report  of  the  Secret  Committee. 


124  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

been  accepted  as  conclusive.  It  was  shown  that  the  former  sum 
was  a  perquisite  always  granted  to  the  commander  in  the  Nether- 
lands and  employed  by  him  for  obtaining  that  secret  intelli- 
gence which  is  absolutely  essential  to  a  general,  and  which  was 
never  more  complete  than  under  Marlborough,  and  that  the 
deduction  from  the  subsidies  was  expressly  authorised  by  the 
foreign  powers  who  were  subsidised,  and  by  a  royal  warrant 
which  granted  it  to  the  commander-in-chief  '  for  extraordinary 
contingent  expenses.'  Whatever  irregularity  there  might  be  in 
providing  by  these  means  a  supply  of  secret-service  money,  it 
was  of  old  standing ;  there  was  no  reason  whatever  to  believe 
that  the  fund  was  misappropriated,  though  from  its  very 
nature  it  could  not  be  accounted  for  in  detail,  and  it  was 
proved  that  the  expenditure  of  secret-service  money  in  the 
campaigns  of  Marlborough  was  considerably  smaller  than  it  had 
been  in  the  incomparably  less  successful  campaigns  of  William.^ 
Prince  Eugene  afterwards  very  candidly  declared  that  he  had 
himself  given  for  intelligence  three  times  as  much  as  Marlborough 
was  charged  with  on  that  head.'^  The  object  of  the  dominant 
party,  however,  was  at  all  costs  to  discredit  Marlborough.  He 
was  dismissed  from  all  his  employments,  pronounced  guilty  by 
a  party  vote  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  exposed  to  a  storm 
of  mendacious  obloquy.  When  Eugene  came  over  to  England 
in  order  to  use  his  influence  against  the  peace  in  the  January  ot 
1711-12,  he  perceived  with  no  little  generous  indignation  that 
every  effort  was  made  to  extol  his  military  talents  at  the  expense 
of  the  great  English  commander.  Marlborough  was  assailed  as 
he  drove  through  the  streets  with  cries  of  '  Stop  thief  1 '  He  was 
grossly  insulted  in  the  House  of  Lords.  He  was  accused  of  the 
most  atrocious  plots  against  the  Queen  and  against  the  State. 
The  scurrilous  pens  of  Mrs.  Manley  and  of  a  host  of  other 
libellers  were  employed  against  him.  Ballads  describing  him 
as  the  basest  of  men  were  sung  publicly  in  the  highways.  The 
funds  which  the  Queen  had  hitherto  provided  for  the  construc- 

'  Coxe.  June   22,   1711.— MSS.  Dublin  State 

^  W.   Watson  to    Jas.   Dawson,       Pamper  Office. 


CH.  I.  MILITARY   GENIUS   OF  MAELBOROUGH.  125 

tion  of  Blenheim  were  stopped,  and  the  tide  of  calumny  and 
vituperation  ran  so  strongly  that  he  thought  it  advisable  to 
abandon  the  country,  and  accordingly  proceeded  in  Xovember 
1712  almost  alone  to  Flanders,  and  soon  after  to  Germany.  He 
was  received  in  both  countries  with  a  respect  and  an  enthusiasm 
that  contrasted  strangely  with  his  treatment  at  home,  and  he 
at  the  same  time  invested  50,000Z.  in  Holland,  in  case  the  state 
of  home  politics  should  exclude  him  for  ever  from  his  country. 

English  history  contains  no  more  striking  instance  of  the 
sudden  revidsion  of  popular  feeling.  Beyond  comparison  the 
greatest  of  English  generals,  Marlborough  had  raised  his 
country  to  a  height  of  military  glory  such  as  it  had  never 
attained  since  the  days  of  Poitiers  and  of  Agincourt,  and  his 
victories  appeared  all  the  more  dazzling  after  the  ignominious 
reigns  of  the  two  last  Stuarts,  and  after  the  many  failures  that 
chequered  the  enterprises  of  William.  His  military  genius, 
though  once  bitterly  decried  by  party  malignity,'  will  now  be 
universally  acknowledged,  and  it  was  sufficient  to  place  him 
among  the  greatest  captains  who  have  ever  lived.  Hardly  any 
other  modern  general  combined  to  an  equal  degree  the  three 
great  attributes  of  daring,  caution,  and  sagacity,  or  conducted 
military  enterprises  of  equal  magnitude  and  duration  without 
losing  a  single  battle  or  failing  in  a  single  siege.  He  was  one 
of  the  very  few  commanders  who  appear  to  have  shown  equal  skill 
in  directing  a  campaign,  in  winning  a  battle,  and  in  improving 
a  victory.  It  cannot,  indeed,  be  said  of  him,  as  it  may  be  said  of 
Frederick  the  Grreat,  that  he  was  at  the  head  of  a  small  Power, 
with  almost  all  Europe  in  arms  against  it,  and  that  nearly  every 
victory  he  won  was  snatched  from  an  army  enormously  outnum- 
bering his  own.  At  Blenheim  and  Oudenarde  the  French  exceeded 

'  Thns  mthelTistonj  of  tJitJ four  hst  as  is  -well  known,  was  depreciated  in 

years  of  Queen  Anne,  Swift — if  he  be  the   same   manner  in   Whig  circles, 

indeed  the  author  of  this  work— says :  Thus  BjTon— 

<l   will  say  nothinn:  of  his  military  oh.bloody  and  most  bootless  Waterloo/ 

accomplishments,  which  the  opposite  \rh\ch.  proves  how  fools  may  have  their  for- 

reports   of  his  friends   and   enemies  tune  too, 

among    the    soldiers  have  rendered  Won  half  by  blunder,  lialt  by  treachery, 

problpmatical '  (p.  U).     Wellingtop,  The  Age  of  Bronze. 


126  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

by  a  few  thousands  the  armies  of  the  allies.  At  Eamillies  the 
army  of  Marlborough  was  slightly  superior.  At  Malplaquet  the 
opposing  forces  were  almost  equal.  Nor  did  the  circumstances  of 
Marlborougli  admit  of  a  military  career  of  the  same  brilliancy, 
variety,  and  magnitude  of  enterprise  as  that  of  Napoleon.  But 
both  Frederick  and  Napoleon  experienced  crushing  disasters, 
and  both  of  them  had  some  advantages  which  Marlborough  did 
not  possess.  Frederick  was  the  absolute  ruler  of  a  State  which 
had  for  many  years  been  governed  exclusively  on  the  military 
principle,  in  which  the  first  and  almost  the  sole  object  of  the 
Government  had  been  to  train  and  discipline  the  largest  and 
most  perfect  army  the  nation  could  support.  Napoleon  was 
the  absolute  ruler  of  the  foremost  military  Power  on  the  Con- 
tinent at  a  time  when  the  enthusiasm  of  a  great  revolution  had 
given  it  an  unparalleled  energy,  when  the  destruction  of  the  old 
hierarchy  of  rank  and  the  opening  of  all  posts  to  talent  had 
brought  an  extraordinary  amount  of  ability  to  the  forefront, 
and  when  the  military  administrations  of  surrounding  nations 
were  singularly  decrepit  and  corrupt.  Marlborough,  on  the 
other  hand,  commanded  armies  consisting  in  a  great  degree  of 
confederates  and  mercenaries  of  many  different  nationalities, 
and  under  many  different  rulers.  He  was  thwarted  at  every  step 
by  political  obstacles,  and  by  the  much  graver  obstacles  arising 
from  divided  command  and  personal  or  national  jealousies  ; 
he  contended  against  the  first  military  nation  of  the  Continent, 
at  a  time  when  its  military  organisation  had  attained  the 
highest  perfection,  and  when  a  long  succession  of  brilliant  wars 
had  given  it  a  school  of  officers  of  consummate  skill. 

But  great  as  were  his  military  gifts,  they  would  have  been 
insufficient  had  they  not  been  allied  with  other  qualities  well" 
fitted  to  win  the  admiration  of  men.  Adam  Smith  has  said, 
with  scarcely  an  exaggeration,  that  '  it  is  a  characteristic 
almost  peculiar  to  the  great  Duke  of  Marlborough,  that  ten 
years  of  such  uninterrupted  and  such  splendid  successes  as 
scarce  any  other  general  could  boast  of,  never  betrayed  him  into 
a  single  rash  action,  scarcely  into  a  single  rash  word  or  expres- 


CH.  1.  CHARACTER  OF  MARLBOROUGH.  127 

sion.' '  Nothing  in  his  career  is  more  admirable  than  the 
unwearied  patience,  the  inimitable  skill,  the  courtesy,  the  tact, 
the  self-command  with  Avhich  he  employed  himself  during 
many  years  in  reconciling  the  incessant  differences,  over- 
coming the  incessant  opposition,  and  soothing  the  incessant 
jealousies  of  those  with  whom  he  was  compelled  to  co-operate. 
His  private  correspondence  abundantly  shows  how  gross  was 
the  provocation  he  endured,  how  keenly  he  felt  it,  how  nobly 
he  bore  it.  As  a  negotiator  he  ranks  with  the  most  skilful 
diplomatists  of  his  age,  and  it  was  no  doubt  his  great  tact  in 
managing  men  that  induced  his  old  rival  Bolingbroke,  in  one 
of  bis  latest  writings,  to  describe  him  as  not  only  the  greatest 
general,  but  also  '  the  greatest  minister  oiu-  country  or  any 
other  has  produced.'  ^  Chesterfield,  while  absurdly  deprecia- 
tino-  his  intellect,  admitted  that  '  his  manner  was  irresistible,' 
and  he  added  that,  of  all  men  he  had  ever  known,  Marlborough 
'  possessed  the  graces  in  the  highest  degree.'  ^  Nor  was  his 
character  without  its  softer  side.  Though  he  cannot,  I  think, 
be  acquitted  of  a  desire  to  prolong  war  in  the  interests  of  his 
personal  or  political  ambition,  it  is  at  least  true  that  no  general 
ever  studied  more,  by  admirable  discipline  and  by  uniform 
humanity,  to  mitigate  its  horrors.  Very  few  friendships  among 
great  political  or  military  leaders  have  been  as  constant  or  as 
unclouded  by  any  shade  of  jealousy  as  the  friendship  between 
Marlborough  and  Godolphin,  and  between  Marlborough  and 
Eugene.  His  conjugal  fidelity,  in  a  time  of  great  laxity  and 
under  temptations  and  provocations  of  no  common  order,  was 
beyond  reproach.  His  attachment  to  the  Church  of  England 
-was  at  one  time  the  great  obstacle  to  his  advancement.  It 
appears  never  to  have  wavered  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
his  life ;  and  no  one  who  reads  his  most  private  letters  with 
candour  can  fail  to  perceive  that  a  certain  vein  of  genuine 
piety  ran  through  his  nature,  however  inconsistent  it  may  ap- 
pear with  sortie  portions  of  his  career. 

'  Moral  PMloMyphy.  ^  Letters  to  his  Son,  Nov.  18,  17'18. 

2  Letters  on.  the  Study  of  History. 


128  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

Yet  it  may  be  questioned  whether,  even  in  the  zenith  of 
his  fame,  he  was  really  popular.  He  had  grave  vices,  and  they 
were  precisely  of  that  kind  which  is  most  fatal  to  public  men. 
His  extreme  rapacity  in  acquiring  and  his  extreme  avarice  in 
hoardino-  money  contrasted  forcibly  with  the  lavish  generosity 
of  Ormond,  and  alone  gave  weight  to  the  charges  of  peculation 
that  were  brought  against  him.  It  is  true  that  this,  like  all  his 
passions,  was  under  control.  Torcy  soon  found  that  it  was  use- 
less to  attempt  to  bribe  him,  and  he  declined,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  little  hesitation  the  enormously  lucrative  post  of  Governor 
of  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  when  he  found  that  the  appoint- 
ment aroused  the  strong  and  dangerous  hostility  of  the  Dutch. 
In  these  cases  his  keen  and  far-seeing  judgment  perceived  clearly 
his  true  interest,  and  he  had  sufficient  resolution  to  follow  it. 
Yet  still,  like  many  men  who  have  risen  from  great  poverty 
to  great  wealth,  avarice  was  the  passion  of  his  Ufe,  and  the 
rapacity  both  of  himself  and  of  his  wife  was  insatiable.  Besides 
immense  grants  for  Blenheim,  and  marriage  portions  given  by  the 
Queen  to  their  daughters,  they  at  one  time  received  between 
them  an  annual  income  of  public  money  of  more  than  64,000^.  ^ 

Nor  can  he  be  acquitted  of  very  gross  and  aggravated 
treachery  to  those  he  served.  It  is,  indeed,  not  easy  to  form  a 
fair  estimate  in  this  respect  of  the  conduct  of  public  men  at 
the  period  of  the  Eevolution.  Historians  rarely  make  sufficient 
allowance  for  the  degree  in  which  the  judgments  and  disposi- 
tions even  of  the  best  men  are  coloured  by  the  moral  tone  of  the 
age,  society,  or  profession  in  which  they  live,  or  for  the  tempta- 
tions of  men  of  great  genius  and  of  natural  ambition  in  times 
whim  no  highly  scrupulous  man  could  possibly  succeed  in  public 
life.  Marlborough  struggled  into  greatness  from  a  very  humble 
position,  in  one  of  the  most  profligate  periods  of  English  politics, 
and  he  lived  through  a  long  period  when  the  ultimate  succession 
of  the  crown  was  very  doubtful.  A  very  large  proportion  of  the 
leading  statesmen  during  this  long  season  of  suspense  made  such 

'  Lord  Stanhope's  History  of  I^ng-       tween  Roman  Gratitude  and  British 
land,  i.  20.     Swift's  '  Contrast    be-      Ingratitude,'  in  the  Examiner,  No.  16. 


I 


CH.  I.  CHARACTER   OF  JMARLBOROUGH.  129 

overtures  to  the  deposed  dynasty  as  would  at  least  secure  them 
from  absolute  ruin  in  the  event  of  a  change  ;  and  their  conduct  is 
surely  susceptible  of  much  palliation.     The  apparent  interests 
and    the    apparent  wishes   of  the  nation  hung  so  evenly  and 
oscillated  so  frequently  that  strong  convictions  were  rare,  and 
even  good  men  might  often  be  in  doubt.     But  the  obligations 
of  Churchill   to  James  were    of  no   common   order,    and  his 
treachery  was  of  no  common  dye.     He  had  been  raised^  by  the 
special  favour  of  his  sovereign  from  the  position  of  a  page  to 
the  peerage,  to  great  wealth,  to  high   command  in  the  army. 
He  had  been  trusted  by  him  with  the  most  absolute  trust.     He 
not  only  abandoned  him  in  the  crisis  of  his  fate,  with  circum- 
stances of  the  most  deliberate  and  aggravated  treachery,  but 
also  employed  his  influence  over  the  daughter  of  his  benefactor  to 
induce  her  to  fly  from  her  father,  and  to  array  herself  with  his 
enemies.     Such  conduct,  if  it  had  indeed  been  dictated,  as  he 
alleged,  solely  by  a  regard  for  the  interests  of  Protestantism, 
would  have  been  certainly,  in  the  words  of  Himie,  '  a  signal 
sacrifice  to  public  virtue  of  every  duty  in  private  life  ; '  and 
it  '  required  ever   after  the  most   upright,  disinterested,   and 
public-spirited  behaviour,  to  render  it  justifiable.'     How  little 
the  later  career  of  Marlborough  fulfilled  this  condition  is  well 
known.      When   we  find  that,  having  been  loaded  under  the 
new  Government  with  titles,  honours,  and  wealth,  having  been 
placed  in   the   inner    council    and    entrusted   with   the    most 
important  State  secrets,  he  was  one  of  the  first  Englishmen  to 
enter  into  negotiations  with  St.  Germain's ;  that  he  purchased 
his  pardon  from  James  by  betraying  important  military  secrets 
to  the  enemies  of  his  country,  and  that  during  a  great  part  of 
his  subsequent  career,  while  holding  ofiice  under  the  Govern- 
ment, he  was  secretly  negotiating  with  the  Pretender,  it  is 
difficult  not  to  place  the  worst  construction  upon  his  public 
life.     It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  his  negotiations  with  the  Jaco- 
bites were  never  sincere,  that  he  had  no  real  desire  for  a  resto- 
ration, and  that  his  guiding  motive  was  much  less  ambition 
than  a  desire  to  secure  wliat  he  possessed  ;  but  these  considera- 
VOL.  I.  10 


130  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

tions  only  slightly  palliate  his  conduct.  At  the  period  of  his 
downfall  his  later  acts  of  treason  were  for  the  most  part  un- 
known, but  his  conduct  towards  James  weighed  heavily  upon 
his  reputation,  and  his  intercourse  with  the  Pretender,  though 
not  proved,  was  at  least  suspected  by  many.  Neither  Hano- 
verians nor  Jacobites  trusted  him,  neither  Whigs  nor  Tories 
could  regard  him  without  reserve  as  their  own. 

And  with  this  feeling  of  distrust  there  was  mingled  a  strong 
element  of  fear.  In  the  latter  years  of  Queen  Anne  the  shadow 
of  Cromwell  fell  darkly  across  the  path  of  Marlborough.  To 
those  who  prefer  the  violent  methods  of  a  reforming  despotism 
to  the  slow  process  of  parliamentary  amelioration,  to  those  who 
despise  the  wisdom  of  following  public  opinion  and  respecting 
the  prejudices  and  the  associations  of  a  nation,  there  can  be 
no  better  lesson  than  is  furnished  by  the  history  of  Cromwell. 
Of  his  high  and  commanding  abilities  it  is  not  here  necessary 
to  speak,  nor  yet  of  the  traits  of  magnanimity  that  may, 
no  doubt,  be  found  in  his  character.  Everything  that  great 
genius  and  the  most  passionate  sympathy  could  do  to  magiaify 
these  has  in  this  century  been  done,  and  a  long  period  of 
unqualified  depreciation  has  been  followed  by  a  reaction  of 
extravagant  eiilogy.  But  the  more  the  qualities  of  the  man 
are  exalted  the  more  significant  are  the  lessons  of  his  life. 
Despising  the  national  sentiment  of  loyalty,  he  and  his  party 
dethroned  and  beheaded  the  King.  Despising  the  ecclesiastical 
sentiment,  they  destroyed  the  Church.  Despising  the  deep 
reverence  for  the  constitution,  they  subverted  the  Parliament. 
Despising  the  oldest  and  most  cherished  customs  of  the  people, 
they  sought  to  mould  the  whole  social  life  of  England  in  the 
die  of  an  austere  Puritanism.  They  seemed  for  a  time  to  have 
succeeded,  but  the  result  soon  appeared.  Republican  equality 
was  followed  by  the  period  of  most  obsequious,  servile  loyalty 
England  has  ever  known.  The  age  when  every  amusement 
was  denounced  as  a  crime  was  followed  by  the  age  when  all 
virtue  was  treated  as  hypocrisy,  and  when  the  sense  of  shame 
seemed  to  have  almost  vanished  from  the  land.     The  prostra- 


CH   I.  MARLBOROUGH   AND   CRO:Nn\^ELL.  131 

tion  of  the  Church  was  followed,  with  the  full  approbation  of 
the  bulk  of  the  nation,  by  the  bitter,  prolonged  persecution  of 
Dissenters.  The  hated  memory  of  the  Commonwealth  was  for 
more  than  a  century  appealed  to  by  every  statesman  who 
desired  to  prevent  reform  or  discredit  liberty,  and  the  name 
of  Cromwell  gathered  around  it  an  intensity  of  hatred  ap- 
proached by  no  other  in  the  history  of  England.  This  was 
the  single  sentiment  common  in  all  its  vehemence  to  the  Epis- 
copalians of  England,  the  Presbyterians  of  Scotland,  and  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  and  it  had  more  than  once  considerable 
political  effects.  The  profound  horror  of  military  despotism, 
which  is  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  salutary  of  English 
sentiments,  has  been,  perhaps,  the  most  valuable  legacy  of  the 
Commonwealth.  In  ]Marlborough,  for  the  first  time  since  the 
Restoration,  men  saw  a  possible  Cromwell,  and  they  looked 
forward  with  alarm  to  the  death  of  the  Queen  as  a  period  pecu- 
liarly propitious  to  military  usurpation.  Bolingbroke  never 
represented  more  happily  the  feelings  of  the  people  than  in  the 
well-known  scene  at  the  first  representation  of  the  '  Cato '  of 
Addison.  Written  by  a  great  Whig  writer,  the  play  was 
intended  to  advocate  Whig  sentiments ;  but  when  the  Whig 
audience  had  made  the  theatre  ring  with  applause  at  every 
speech  on  the  evil  of  despotism  and  arbitrary  principles,  the 
Tory  leader  availed  himself  of  the  pause  between  the  acts  to 
summon  the  chief  actor,  to  present  him  with  a  purse  of  money, 
and  to  thank  him  publicly  for  having  defended  the  cause  of 
liberty  so  well  against  a  perpetual  military  dictator. 

These  considerations  help  to  explain  the  completeness  of 
the  downfall  of  Marlborough.  His  secretary  Cardonnel  was  at 
the  same  time  expelled  from  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the 
charge  of  having  received  a  gratuity  from  some  bread  con- 
tractors ;  and  Walpole,  ^yho  was  rapidly  rising  to  a  foremost 
place  in  the  Whig  ranks,  was  on  a  very  similar  charge  not  only 
expelled,  but  sent  to  the  Tower.  The  opposition  of  the  Upper 
House  was  met  by  the  simultaneous  creation  of  twelve  peers — 
one  of  them  being  a  brother  to  Mrs.  Mashara — and  the  friends 


132  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

of  Marlborough  in  the  Lords  were  also  seriously  weakened  by 
the  death  of  Godolphin  in  September  1712.  The  language 
adopted  towards  the  Dutch  was  that  of  undisguised  and  impla- 
cable hostility.  The  treaty  of  1709,  by  which  England  had 
guaranteed  Holland  a  strong  barrier,  while  Holland  guaranteed 
the  Protestant  succession  in  England,  and  undertook,  in  time 
of  danger,  to  support  it  by  arms,  was  brought  before  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  severely  censured  as  too  favourable  to 
the  Dutch  ;  and  Lord  Townshend,  who  negotiated  it,  was  voted 
an  enemy  to  his  country.  Strong  resolutions  were  carried, 
censuring  the  conduct  of  Holland,  in  falling  below  the  stipu- 
lated proportion  of  troops  and  sailors,  and  a  powerful  re- 
presentation, which  was  in  fact  an  indictment  against  the 
allies,  was  drawn  up.  The  State?  issued  a  memorial  in  reply, 
but  it  was  voted  by  the  House  of  Commons  '  a  false,  scandalous, 
and  malicious  libel,'  and  orders  were  given  that  those  who  had 
printed  and  published  it  in  England  should  be  taken  into 
custody.  In  the  same  spirit  two  protests  of  peers  against  the 
proceedings  of  the  ministers  were  expunged  from  the  records  of 
the  House  of  Lords.  Fleetwood,  the  bishop  of  St.  Asaph's,  having 
published  some  sermons,  preached  many  years  before,  with  a 
very  moderate  preface,  repudiating  the  doctrines  of  passive 
obedience,  deploring  the  ingratitude  shown  to  William,  and 
complaining  that  the  spirit  of  discord  had  entered  into  the 
councils  and  impaired  the  glory  of  England,  this  preface,  by 
order  of  the  House  of  Commons,  was  burnt  by  the  hangman.' 
Libels  of  the  most  virulent  kind,  some  of  them  from  the  pen 
of  Swift,  were  showered  upon  the  allies  and  upon  the  Whigs, 
while  the  band  of  power  was  perpetually  raised  against  the 
writings  of  the  Opposition.  Prosecutions  of  this  kind  had  for 
some  time  been  very  numerous,  and  the  Stamp  Act  of  1712, 
imposing  a  stamp  of  a  halfpenny  on  every  sheet,  gave  a  severe 
blow  to  the  rising  activity  of  the  press. 

I  do  not  propose  to  follow  in  detail  the  negotiations  which 

'  It  was  republished  in  the  Spectator,  No.  384. 


en.  I.  THE  PEACE   OF   UTRECHT.  133 

terminated  in  the  Peace   of   Utrecht.     Their  story  has  been 
often  told  with  a  fullness  that  leaves  notliing  to  be  desired,  and 
it  will  he  sufficient  to  relate  the  general  issue.     The  desertion 
of  England  and  the  disasters  of  the  last  campaign  had  broken 
the  courage  of  the  allies,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  Emperor, 
all  the  Powers  consented  to  make  separate  treaties  of  peace  with 
France  on  terms  whicli  were,  in  a  very  great  measure,  deter- 
mined by  English  influence.     On  March  31,  1713,  these  several 
treaties  were  signed,  and  soon    after,  that    between   England 
and  Spain.     As  far  as  England  was  concerned,  the  peace  left 
little  to  be  desired.     The  possession  or  restoration  of  Gibraltar, 
Minorca,  Hudson's  Bay,  Acadia  or  Nova  Scotia,  Newfoundland, 
and  the  French  part  of  St.   Christopher,  and  the  immense  ac- 
cession of  guilty  wealth  acquired  througli  the  Assiento  treaty,  by 
which  England  obtained  the  monopoly  of  the  slave-trade  to  the 
Spanish  colonies,  did  much  to  compensate  for  the  great  pecu- 
niaiy  sacrifices  of  the  war ;  while  some  slight  additional  security 
was  given  to  the  nation  by  the  French  recognition  of  the  Act 
of  Settlement,    by  the  expulsion  of  the    Pretender  from  the 
French  dominions,  and,  above  all,  by  the  destruction  of  the 
forts  and  harbour  of  Dunkirk.     The  Duke  of  Savoy  obtained 
the  restoration  of  the  territory  he  had  lost  in   Savoy  and  in 
Nice,  a  slight  rectification  of  his  frontier,  and  also  the  island  of 
Sicily ;  and  it  was  provided  that,  in  the  event  of  the  failure  of 
the  line  of  Philip,  the  Spanish  throne  should  descend  to  the 
House   of  Savoy.     The   treaty  with  Portugal  was    confined  to 
some  not  very  important   articles  relating  to  her  frontier  in 
America  ;  but  Prussia  obtained  from  PVance  for  tlie  first  time 
.the  recognition  of  the  royal  title  of  her  sovereign,  and  of  his 
right  to  the  sovereignty  of  Neuchatel,  which,  on  the  death  of 
the  Duchess  of  Nemours  in  1 707,  had  been  recognised  by  the 
States  of  Neuchatel,  but  violently  repudiated  by  the  French 
King.     Prussia  at  the  same  time  renounced  in  favour  of  France 
all   claims    to   the   principality   of    Orange,    receiving   Upper 
Guelderland  instead.     Holland  obtained  some  advantages,  but 
they  were  so  much  less  than  those  wliich  she  had  claimed,  and 


134  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  i. 

tlian  those  she  had  been  promised,  and  so  insufficient  to  com- 
pensate her  for  the  long  struggle  she  had  undergone,  that  she 
may  be  justly  regarded  as  one  of  the  chief  sufferers  by  the 
peace.  No  new  fortresses  were  incorporated  in  her  territory, 
but  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  as  they  had  been  possessed  by 
Charles  II.,  were  to  be  ceded  to  the  House  of  Austria,  the  Dutch 
maintaining  the  right  of  garrisoning  the  strong  places  so  as  to 
form  a  barrier  against  France.  By  this  means  the  Dutch  and 
Austrian  power  would  combine  to  shelter  Holland  from  French 
invasion  ;  but  the  Dutch  occupation  of  Austrian  towns  could 
hardly  fail  to  produce  discord  between  Austria  and  the  Nether- 
lands. Holland  was  compelled  to  restore  Lille,  Aire,  Bethune, 
and  St.  Venant  to  France ;  Quesnoy,  which  was  strategically 
of  great  importance,  and  which  had  been  lost  through  the 
treacherous  desertion  of  England,  remained  in  French  hands ; 
Tournay  would  have  almost  certainly  been  surrendered  had  not 
St.  John  feared  the  indignation  of  English  public  opinion  ;  ^ 
and  although  Holland  procured  a  treaty  of  commerce  with 
France,  her  statesmen  complained  bitterly  that  she  was  ex- 
cluded from  all  share  in  the  Assiento  contract,  and  in  the  ad- 
vantages which  England  obtained  by  her  new  stations  in  the 
Mediterranean.  As  the  Emperor  refused  to  accede  to  the  Peace 
of  Utrecht,  the  Spanish  Netherlands  were  placed  in  Dutch  hands 
till  peace  was  finally  concluded,  and  in  this  quarter,  therefore, 
the  war  was  at  an  end.  The  Spanish  dominions  in  Italy, 
with  the  exception  of  Sicily  and  of  a  small  portion  of  the 
Milanese,  which  passed  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  were  ceded  to 
the  Emperor,  and  a  military  convention,  signed  just  before 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  established  the  neutrality  of  Italy,  while, 
by  another  similar  convention,  guaranteed  by  both  England 
and  France,  the  Emperor  agreed  to  withdraw  his  troops  from 
Catalonia  and  from  the  islands  of  Majorca  and  Ivica.  He  still 
refused  to  abandon  his  claims  to  the  whole  Spanish  dominions, 
or  to  treat  with  Philip ;  and  the  German  frontier  on  the  side 

'  See  Bolingbroke's  correspondence  on  the  subject  with  Torcy. 


CH.  I,  CONCLUSION   OF  THE   PEACE.  135 

of  France  was  only  determined  after  another  campaign  in  which 
Villars  captured  in  a  few  weeks  both  Landau  and  Fribourg. 
The  Emperor  then  came  to  terms,  and  peace  was  signed,  at  Ra- 
stadt,  on  March  6  (N.S.),  and  confirmed  by  the  treaty  of  Baden, 
in  September,  1714.  By  this  peace  France  restored  to  the 
Empire  Brisach,  Fribourg,  and  Kehl ;  engaged  to  destroy  the 
fortresses  she  had  built  since  the  peace  of  Ryswick  along  the 
Rhine,  and  recognised  the  new  electoral  dignity  in  the  House 
of  Hanover,  while  the  Emperor,  on  his.  side,  consented  to  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Electors  of  Bavaria  and  Cologne  in  the 
territory  and  dignities  they  had  lost  by  the  war.  Alsace  con- 
tinued French,  and  Landau  was  for  a  time  added  to  the  French 
dominions.  The  Emperor  refused  to  include  the  Spanish  King 
in  the  treaty,  but  mthout  any  formal  peace  active  hostilities 
ceased,  and  though  the  ambition  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg 
was  baffled,  it  was  hoped  that  the  great  end  of  the  allies  was 
accomplished  by  the  solemn  and  reiterated  renunciation  by 
Philip  of  all  claim  to  the  French  throne. 

France,  which  had  been  reduced  to  an  almost  hopeless  condi- 
tion, emerged  from  the  struggle  much  weakened  for  a  time  by  the 
exhaustion  of  the  war,  but  scarcely  injured  by  the  peace.  With 
the  exception  of  a  very  few  fortresses,  her  European  territory  was 
intact ;  her  military  prestige  was  in  some  degree  restored  by 
the  victory  of  Denain  and  by  the  last  campaign  of  Villars  on 
the  Rhine ;  and  her  ascendancy  in  Europe,  which  had  proved 
a  source  of  many  dangers,  was  not  permanently  impaired. 
Spain  had  imdergone  the  dismemberment  she  so  greatly 
feared ;  but  the  severance  of  distant,  ill-governed,  and  dis- 
contented provinces  did  not  seriously  diminish  her  strength. 
She  retained  the  sovereign  of  her  choice.  She  preserved  the 
colonial  possessions  which  were  the  great  source  of  her  wealth, 
and  she  was  in  some  degree  reinvigorated  by  the  infusion  of 
a  foreign  element  into  her  government.  Alone  among  the 
Spaniards  the  Catalans  had  real  reason  to  regret  the  peace. 
They  had  clung  to  the  cause  of  Charles  with  a  desperate  fidelity, 
and  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  rang  the  death-knell  of  provincial 


136  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

liberties  to  wliich  they  were  passionately  attached.  From  the 
beginning  of  1705  they  had  been  the  steady  and  faithful  allies 
of  England ;  they  had  again  and  again  done  eminent  service 
in  her  cause ;  they  had  again  and  again  received  from  her 
ministers  and  generals  the  most  solemn  assurances  that  they 
would  never  be  abandoned.  When  England  first  opened  a 
separate  negotiation  for  peace  she  might  easily  have  secured 
the  Catalonian  liberties  by  making  their  recognition  an  indis- 
pensable preliminary  of  peace ;  but,  instead  of  this,  the  Eng- 
lish ministers  began  by  recognising  the  title  of  Philip,  and 
contented  themselves  with  a  simple  prayer  that  a  general 
amnesty  might  be  granted.  When  the  convention  was  signed 
for  the  evacuation  of  Catalonia  by  the  Imperial  troops,  the 
question  of  the  provincial  liberties  was  referred  to  the  defi- 
nite peace,  the  Queen  and  the  French  King  promising  at  that 
time  to  interpose  their  good  offices  to  secure  them.  The  Em- 
peror, who  was  bound  to  the  Catalans  by  the  strongest  ties  of 
gratitude  and  honour,  could  have  easily  obtained  a  guarantee 
of  their  fueros  at  the  price  of  an  acknowledgment  of  the  title  of 
Philip ;  but  he  was  too  proud  and  too  selfish  for  such  a  sacrifice. 
The  English,  it  is  true,  repeatedly  urged  the  Spanish  King  to 
guarantee  these  privileges,  and  their  ambassador.  Lord  Lexing- 
ton, represented  '  that  the  Queen  thought  herself  obliged,  by 
the  strongest  ties,  those  of  conscience  and  honour,'  to  insist 
upon  this  point ;  but  these  were  mere  representations,  supported 
by  no  action,  and  were  therefore  peremptorily  refused.  The 
English  peace  with  Spain  contained  a  clause  granting  the  Cata- 
lans a  general  armistice,  and  also  a  promise  that  they  should  be 
placed  in  the  same  position  as  the  Castilians,  which  gave  them 
the  right  of  holding  employments  and  carrying  on  a  direct 
trade  with  the  West  Indies,  but  it  made  no  mention  of  their 
provincial  privileges.  The  Peace  of  Rastadt  was  equally 
silent,  for  the  dignity  of  the  Emperor  would  not  suffer  him 
to  enter  into  any  negotiations  with  Philip.  The  unhappy 
people,  abandoned  by  those  whom  they  had  so  faithfully  served, 
refused  to   accept  the  position   offered  them  by  treaty,   and, 


CH.  I.  DESERTION   OF   THE   CATALANS.  IS/ 

much  to  the  indignation  of  the  English  Government,  they  still 
continued  in  arms,  struggling  with  a  desperate  courage  against 
ovenvhelming  odds.     The  King  of  Spain  then  called  upon  the 
Queen,  as  a  guarantee  of  the  treaty  of  evacuation,  '  to  order  a 
squadron  of  her  ships  to  reduce  his  subjects  to  their  obedience, 
and   thereby   complete   the   tranquillity  of  Spain  and   of  the 
Mediterranean    commerce.'     A  fleet  was  actually  despatched, 
which  would  probably  have  been  employed  against  Barcelona, 
but  for  an  urgent  address   of  the  House  of  Lords,'    and  the 
whole  moral   weight  of  England   was   thrown    into  the    scale 
against  the  insurgents.     The  conduct  of  the  French  was  more 
decided.     Though  the  French  King  had  engaged  himself  with 
the  Queen  by  the  treaty  of  evacuation  to  use  his  good  offices  in 
the  most  effectual  manner  in  favour  of  the  Catalan  liberties,  he 
now  sent  an  army  to  hasten  the  capture  of  Barcelona.     The 
blockade  of  that  noble  city  lasted  for  more  than  a  year.     The 
insurgents  hung  up  over  the  high  altar  the  Queen's  solemn  de- 
claration to  protect  them.   They  continued  the  hopeless  struggle 
till  14,000  bombs  had  been  thrown  into  the  city;  till  a  great 
part  of  it  had  been  reduced  to  ashes ;  till  seven  breaches  had 
been  made;  till  10.000  of  the  besieging  army  had  been  killed 
or  wounded;  and  till  famine  had  been  added  to  the  horrors  of 
war.     At  last,  on  September  11,  1714,  Barcelona  was  taken  by 
storm.     A  frightful  massacre  took  place  in  the  streets.     Many 
of  the  inhabitants  were  afterwards  imprisoned  or  transported, 
and  the  old  privileges  of  Catalonia  were  finally  abolished.^ 

Such  was  tlie  last  scene  of  this  disastrous  war,  and  such 
were  the  leading  articles  df  the  treaties  by  which  the  balance 
.and  disposition  of  power  in  Europe  were  for  a  long  period 
determined.  France  and  Austria,  wliose  competition  for  the 
dominions  of  Charles  II.  was  the  real  cause  of  the  war,  would 
botli  have  been  more  powerful  had  they  never  drawn  the  sword 
but  simply  accepted  the  treaty  of  partition.     As  far  as  Eno-land 

>  April  3,  1714.  de  Beim-ick,   tome  ii.    Bolingbroke's 

^  See  the  Report  of  the  Committee  '  Letters,  iii.  365  ;  Somers'  Ti-acts  xiii. 

of  Secrecy  of  the  House  of  Commons  G:i6-638 ;  Sismondi,  Ilisf.  des Fra'ncai^' 

on  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.     Memoires  xix.  32-40. 


138  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

was  concerned,  the  peace  was  less  blameable  than  the  means 
by  which  it  was  obtained,  and  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Tory 
party  was  hardly  more  deflected  by  dishonourable  motives  than 
that  of  their  adversaries.  Those,  indeed,  who  can  look  un- 
dazzled  through  the  blaze  of  military  glory  that  illuminates 
the  reign  of  Anne  will  find  very  little  in  English  public  life 
during  that  period  deserving  of  respect.  Party  motives  on  both 
sides  were  supreme.  They  led  one  party  to  prolong  a  war, 
which  was  once  unquestionably  righteous,  beyond  all  just  and 
reasonable  limits.  They  led  the  other  party  to  make  a  peace 
which  was  desirable  and  almost  necessary,  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  left  a  deep  and  lasting  stain  on  the  honour  of  the 
nation.  To  those  who  care  to  note  the  landmarks  of  moral  his- 
tory which  occasionally  appear  amid  the  vicissitudes  of  politics, 
it  may  not  be  uninteresting  to  observe  that  among  the  few 
parts  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  which  appear  to  have  given  un- 
qualified and  unanimous  satisfaction  at  home  was  the  Assiento 
contract,  which  made  England  the  great  slave-trader  of  the  world. 
The  last  prelate  who  took  a  leading  part  in  English  politics 
affixed  his  signature  to  the  treaty.  A  Te  Deum,  composed  by 
Handel,  was  sung  in  thanksgiving  in  the  churches.  Theological 
passions  had  been  recently  more  vehemently  aroused,  and  theo- 
logical controversies  had  for  some  years  acquired  a  wider  and 
more  absorbing  interest  in  England  than  in  any  period  since 
the  Commonwealth ;  but  it  does  not  yet  appear  to  have  oc- 
curred to  any  class  that  a  national  policy  which  made  it  its 
main  object  to  encomage  the  kidnapping  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  negroes,  and  their  consignment  to  the  most  miserable 
slavery,  might  be  at  least  as  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  either  the  establishment  of  Presbyterianism 
or  the  toleration  of  prelacy  in  Scotland. 

While  the  peace  was  still  in  process  of  negotiation,  the  two 
leaders  of  the  Government  were  raised  to  the  peerage,  but  with 
unequal  honours  ;  and  the  fact  that  St.  John  was  only  made 
Viscount  Bolingbroke,  while  Harley  became  Earl  of  Oxford, 
greatly  strengthened  the  jealousy  which  had  arisen  between  them. 


CH.  I.  POSITION   OF   PARTIES.  139 

The  position  of  the  Government,  however,  on  the  conclusion  of 
the  peace,  was  very  strong,  for  it  was  warmly  supported  by  the 
Queen  and  by  the  two  most  powerful  classes  in  England.  The 
Church  was  gratified  by  the  measures  against  the  Dissenters. 
The  country  gentry  had  obtained  in  1711  a  Bill  which  they 
believed  of  the  liighest  value  to  their  interests.  In  1703, 
before  the  ascendancy  of  the  Tories  in  the  ministry  had  been 
overthrown,  a  Bill  was  carried  through  the  House  of  Commons, 
providing  that  no  person  who  did  not  possess  sufficient  real  es- 
tates should  be  chosen  member  of  that  House  ;  but  the  measure 
was  thrown  out  by  the  Whig  majority  in  the  Lords.  The 
Government  now,  however,  succeeded  in  carrying  through  both 
Houses  a  measure  providing  that  all  Members  of  Parliament, 
except  the  eldest  sous  of  peers  and  those  who  sat  for  Univer- 
sities or  for  Scotch  constituencies,  must  possess  landed  pro- 
perty, the  borough  members  to  the  extent  of  SOOL,  the  county 
members  to  the  extent  of  600^.  a-year.  In  times  of  peace, 
when  no  abnormal  agency  was  disturbing  the  natural  disposi- 
tion of  parties,  it  was  believed  that  the  ascendancy  of  the 
Tories  must  be  indisputable  ;  the  desire  for  peace  arising  from 
many  causes  had  for  some  time  been  growing  in  the  country, 
and  there  was  a  general  and  well-founded  conviction  that  the 
war  had  been  needlessly  prolonged  through  party  motives ; 
that  no  results  could  be  hoped  for  at  all  equivalent  to  the  sacri- 
fices that  were  demanded ;  and  that  the  allies  had  tin-own  upon 
England  a  very  unfair  and  excessive  proportion  of  the  burden. 
Still,  when  all  this  was  admitted,  there  was  much  in  tlie  foreign 
policy  of  the  Government  to  give  a  great  shock  to  the  national 
pride.  The  abrupt  termination  of  the  splendid  victories  of 
Marlborough  ;  the  disgrace  of  the  great  general  wlio  had  raised 
England  to  a  loftier  pinnacle  than  she  had  occupied  in  the 
palmiest  days  of  Elizabeth  ;  the  many  shameful,  humiliating, 
and  violent  incidents  which  occmrred  during  the  negotiations ; 
the  final  triumphs  of  France,  due  in  a  great  measure  to  an 
English  defection  ;  the  abandonment  of  the  Catalan  insurgents ; 
the  manifest  inadequacy  of  the  concessions  exacted  from  France 


140  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHrEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

by  the  treaty,  were  all  keenly  felt  by  those  large  classes  who 
were  not  blindly  attached  to  party  interests.  Besides  this,  the 
great  question  of  the  succession  to  the  throne  began  to  rise  into 
a  greater  prominence,  and  filled  the  minds  of  men  with  anxiety 
and  doubt. 

The  characters  of  the  ministers  were  not  fitted  to  reassure 
them.  With  the  exception  of  Ormond,  none  of  the  Tory  leaders 
were  personally  popular,  though  a  certain  transient  enthusiasm 
had  for  a  few  weeks  centred  upon  Oxford  after  the  attempt 
upon  his  life  by  Gruiscard  in  1711.  The  character  of  Oxford 
bore  in  many  respects  a  curious  resemblance  to  that  of  Godolphin. 
Both  of  them  were  slow,  cautious,  temporising,  moderate,  and 
somewhat  selfish  men  ;  tedious  and  inefficient  in  debate,  and 
entirely  without  sympathy  with  the  political  and  religious 
fanaticisms  of  their  parties.  Yet  both  statesmen  passed  in  the 
race  of  ambition  several  who  were  far  superior  to  them  in  intel- 
lect, and  the  qualities  to  which  they  owed  their  success  were 
in  a  great  degree  the  same.  A  good  private  character,  great 
patience,  courage,  and  perseverance,  much  sobriety  of  judgment 
and  much  moderation  in  victory,  characterised  both.  But  here 
the  resemblance  ceased.  Cock-fighting,  racing,  and  gambling 
occupied  most  of  the  leisure  of  Grodolphin,  while  the  literary 
tastes  of  Oxford  made  him  the  idol  of  the  great  writers  of 
his  day,  and  reacted  very  favourably  on  his  position  in  his- 
tory. He  had,  indeed,  like  Addison  and  Bolingbroke,  the 
vice  of  hard-drinking ;  but  in  other  respects  his  private  life 
was  unassailable.  His  simple  manners,  his  wide  culture,  his 
generous  but  discriminating  patronage  of  literature,  his 
fidelity  in  friendship,  his  freedom  from  all  sordid  pecuniary 
views,  gained  for  him  in  the  circle  of  those  who  knew  him 
well,  a  large  measure  of  respect  and  even  of  afiection.  But 
in  public  life  his  faults  were  graver  than  those  of  Godol- 
phin, and  he  was  far  inferior  to  him  in  the  solid  qualities 
of  statesmanship.  Though  his  business  habits  and  his  re- 
cognised caution  and  moderation  gave  him  some  weight  with 
the  mercantile  classes,  he  had  no  pretension   to  the  consum- 


en.  I.  OXFORD  AND   BOLINGBROKE.  141 

mate  financial  ability  of  liis  rival.  He  had  been  Speaker  dming 
three  parliaments,  and  his  political  knowledge  was  chiefly 
a  knowledge  of  the  forms  of  the  House,  and  of  the  disposi- 
tions of  its  members.  His  special  skill  lay  not  in  the  higher 
walks  of  administration,  but  in  parliamentary  tactics  and  in 
political  intrigues,  and  his  intrigues  seem  to  have  seldom  had  any 
object  except  his  own  aggrandisement.  He  had  that  kind  of 
mind  and  character  that  can  attach  itself  firmly  to  no  party  or 
set  of  principles,  and  seeks  only  for  compromise  and  delay. 
He  was  insincere,  dilatory,  mysterious,  and  irresolute,  entirely 
incapable  of  giving  his  full  confidence  to  his  colleagues,  of 
taking  any  prompt  decision,  or  of  committing  himself  without 
reserve  to  one  line  of  policy.  And  these  defects  he  showed  at  a 
time  when  resolution  and  frankness  were  supremely  necessary. 
One  high  political  quality,  it  is  true,  he  possessed  perhaps 
more  conspicuously  than  any  of  his  contemporaries.  It  is  the 
strength  of  slow  and  sluggish  temperaments  that  they  can 
often  bear  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune  with  a  calm  constitutional 
courage  rarely  attained  by  more  nervous  and  highly  organised 
natures,  and  this  attribute  Oxford  pre-eminently  displayed. 
The  keenest  observer  then  living  pronounced  him  to  be,  of  all 
men  he  had  ever  known,  the  least  changed  either  by  adversity 
or  prosperity' ;  and  he  was  in  this  respect  rather  remarkably 
distinguished  from  his  brilliant  colleague.  The  genius  and 
daring  of  Bolingbroke  were,  indeed,  incontestable,  but  his 
defects  as  a  party  leader  were  scarcely  less.  Xo  statesman 
was  ever  truer  to  the  interests  of  his  party,  but,  by  a  strange 
contradiction,  no  leader  was  ever  less  fitted  to  represent 
it.  His  eminently  Italian  character,  delighting  in  elaborate 
intrigue,  the  contrast  between  his  private  life  and  his  stoical 
professions,  his  notorious  indifference  to  the  religious  tenets 
which  were  the  very  basis  of  the  politics  of  his  party,  shook 

'  Swift.  See  the  noble  lines  of  Pope  on  Harley — 

'A  soul  supreme  in  each  hard  instance  tried, 
Above  all  pain,  all  passion,  and  all  pride, 
The  rage  of  power,  the  blast  of  public  breath, 
The  lust  of  lucre,  and  the  dread  of  death.' 


142  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  i. 

the  confidence  of  the  country  gentry  and  country  clergy,  who 
formed  the  bulk  of  his  followers  ;  and  he  exhibited,  on  some 
occasions  an  astonishing  combination  of  recklessness  and  in- 
sincerity. In  England  the  House  of  Commons  was  mainly 
Tory ;  but  in  the  House  of  Lords  the  balance  of  power,  even 
after  the  creation  of  the  twelve  peers,  hung  doubtfully ;  and 
there  were  several  eminent  men  who  had  gone  cordially  with 
the  Tories  on  the  question  of  the  peace,  but  whose  allegiance  on 
other  questions  was  less  certain.  In  Ireland,  on  the  contrary, 
the  peers  were  entirely  subservient  to  the  ministry,  while  the 
House  of  Commons  was  in  violent  opposition,  and  strenuously 
maintained  the  principles  of  the  Eevolution.  Scotland  had 
lost  her  parliament,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  her 
dominant  sentiment  was  Jacobite.  In  1711  the  Duchess  of 
Gordon  openly  presented  the  Faculty  of  Advocates  with  a 
medal  representing  on  one  side  the  Pretender,  with  the  words 
'  Cujus  est,'  and  on  the  other  the  British  Islands,  with  the 
motto  'reddite';^  and  the  medal  was  accepted  with  thanks 
by  that  body.  Among  the  Highlanders  and  the  Episcopalian 
gentry  Jacobitism  had  always  been  very  powerful,  and  the 
Presbyterians  of  the  Lowlands,  who  might  naturally  be  re- 
garded as  the  implacable  enemies  of  a  Catholic  sovereign,  and 
especially  of  a  sovereign  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  were  so  bitterly 
hostile  to  the  Union  that  great  numbers  of  them  were  prepared 
to  subordinate  their  whole  policy  to  the  single  end  of  obtaining 
its  repeal.  Their  discontent  was  greatly  increased  by  the 
toleration  accorded  to  the  Episcopalians,  and  the  Jacobites 
entertained  ardent,  though,  no  doubt,  exaggerated,  expectations, 
that  the  Pretender,  by  promising  repeal,  could  rally  all  Scotland 
to  his  cause.'^     The  Scotch  Jacobite  party,  however,  suffered  a 

'  See  an  engraving  of  this  medal  whom  the  Parliament  has  lately  pro- 

in  Boyer's  Anne  (folio  ed.),  p.  511.  tected  against  the  Presbyterians   of 

^  This  appears  very  prominently  in  Scotland,  has  irritated  tlie  latter  to 
the  Stuart  papers.  I  may  give  as  a  such  a  degree  that  they  would  concur 
sample  a  few  lines  from  a  very  able  in  whatever  might  deliver  them  from 
memorial  on  the  state  of  Jacobitism  the  Union  with  England,  which  is 
in  the  kingdom  by  Lesley  (April,  universally  detested  in  Scotland, 
1711)  :  'The  affair  of  Greenshields,  a  where  they  are  persuaded  that  no- 
minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  thing  can  deliver  them  from  it  but 


CK.I.  JACOBITE   rNTRIGUES.  1-43 

very  serious  loss  in  1712  by  tlie  death  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton, 
who  was  killed  in  a  duel  with  Lord  Mohun. 

In  England  the  prohabilities  of  the  next  succession  were  so 
nearly  balanced  that  there  were  few  leading  statesmen  who  did 
not  more  or  less  enter  into  Jacobite  intrigues,  some  of  them  in 
order  to  obtain  a  refuge  for  themselves  in  case  of  a  restoration, 
others  in  order  to  obtain  the  parliamentary  support  of  the 
Jacobite  contingent,  and  others  again  through  a  sincere 
desire  to  revert  to  the  old  line.  In  the  first  category  may  be 
placed  Marlborough  and  Godolphin.  In  July,  1710,  when  the 
Godolphin  ministry  was  on  the  eve  of  dissolution  ^Marlborough 
was  engaged  in  intimate  correspondence  with  the  Pretender, 
and  a  letter  is  preserved  written  to  him  by  the  wife  of  the 
Pretender,  imploring  him  in  the  most  urgent  terms  not  to 
resign  his  command,  but  to  retain  it  in  the  interests  of  the 
Stuarts.'  As  late  as  1713,  at  a  time  when  Marlborough  was 
engaged  in  the  closest  correspondence  with  the  Hanoverian 
party,  and  when,  as  there  is  little  reason  to  doubt,  he  was 
sincerely  wedded  to  the  Hanoverian  cause,  a  Jacobite  agent 
reports  a  conversation  with  him,  in  which  he  gave  the  strongest 
assurances  of  his    attachment  to   the  cause   of  the    Stuarts.^ 

the  return  of  their  sovereign byterians  favourably  disposed  towards 

There  is  not  a  man  in  Great  Britain  the  prcoent  government  or  pretty  in- 

who  is  not  convinced  that  if  the  King  different  as  to  all  governments  what- 

of  England  had  landed  the  last  time  soever  ;  but  as  the  far  greatest  part  of 

in  Scotland  he  would  have  infallibly  both  these  have  an  heartie  aversion  to 

succeeded.'  —  Macpherson's    Original  the    Union,  if   once   they  were  tho- 

Papers,  ii.  211.   See,  too,  the  LockliaH  roughly  convinced  that   the   King's 

Papers.      On  the  other  hand,  Boyer  prosperity  would    terminate   in   the 

says  that  one  of  the  good  results  of  dissolution  thereof,  there  is  reason  to 

1  lie  abortive  invasion  of  Scotland  in  believe  a  great  many  of  the  first  would 

1708  was  that  it  'opened  the   eyes  be  converted  at  least  so  far  as  to  be 

of  the    Scotch  Presbyterians,    most  neutral,  and  most  of  the  others  de- 

of    whom,  having   been   seduced  by  clare  for  him.'  —  Lochhart  Paperx, 

the    Pretender's    partisans,   had   till  ii.  20. 

then  appeared  obstinately  averse   to  '  Jlarlborough   was   at  this   time 

the   Union.'— Boyer 's   Anne,  p.    336.  also  corresponding  with  the  Elector 

As   late   as   1717,  Lockhart,  review-  of  Hanover.— Macpherson,ii.  157-161, 

iug  the  prospects  of   Jacobitism    in  183. 

Scotland,  wrote:   'Though  the  King  ^  gge   the  very  curious   letter  of 

(the     Pretender)     does     not     want  Tunstal    to    Lord    Middleton,     Oct. 
some  friends  in  the  western  shires,-  ,  1713.— Macpherson's  Papers,  ii.  4-tl, 

yet   the  gross   of    the  people,   both  442.     See,  too,  the  evidence  furnished 

gentry  and  commons,  are  either  Pres-  by  the  Memoirs  of   Torcy  of  the  re- 


144  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

Godolphin  was  more  or  less  mixed  up  with  Jacobite  correspond- 
ence to  the  end  of  his  life.     The  leaders  of  that  party  appear 
to  have  had  some  real  belief  in  his  sincerity,  and  he  is  said  after 
his  expulsion  from  office  to  have  expressed  his  deep  regret  that 
he  had  not  remained  in  power  long  enough  to  bring  in  the 
rightful  king.^     Harley,  towards  the    end  of   1710,  had  sent 
the  Abbe  Gaultier,  who  afterwards  took  a  leading  part  in  the 
neo-otiation  of  the  peace,  to  treat  with  the  Duke  of  Berwick  for 
the  restoration  of  the  Pretender  after  the  death  of  the  Queen, 
and  the  Jacobite  members  were  accordingly  directed  to  support 
his  measures,^  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  had  any  real 
desire  to  restore  the  Stuarts.     The  hopes  of  the  party  for  a 
time   ran   very   high   when  the  Jacobite   Duke    of  Hamilton 
was  appointed  ambassador  extraordinary  to  France,  but  they 
soon   ceased   to   trust    in    Harley,    and    the    leaders    of    tlie 
Jacobites  usually  spoke  of  him  with  peculiar  bitterness.     He 
had  in  the  former  reign  taken  a  leading  part  in  framing  the 
Act  of  Settlement.     At  the  time  when  the  Whig  ministry  fell, 
he  desired  to  make  a  coalition  administration,  under  which 
Marlborough  could  still  retain  his  command,  and  in  which  he 
might  himself  turn  the  balance  of  power.     When  this  became 
impossible  he  generally  tried  to  moderate  the  violence  of  his 
colleagues,  to  support  a  policy  of  compromise  and  expedients, 
and  to  keep  open  for  himself  more  than  one  path  of  retreat. 
'  It  is  my  Lord  of  Oxford's  politics,'  said  a  Jacobite  agent  in 
1712,  'to  smoothe  and  check,  and  he  would  not  have  removed 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough  if  it  had  not  been  absolutely  neces- 
sary.' 3     As  the  struggle  became  more  critical  he  wrapt  himself 
in  a  veil  of  impenetrable  mystery,  avoided  as  far  as  possible 
confidential    intercourse    either    with   his   colleagues   or    with 
Jacobite    or    Hanoverian   agents,   procrastinated,    kept    open 

spectful  way  in  which  Marlborough  ii.  170. 

was  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  Pre-  -  Memoires  du  Mareclial  de  Ber- 

tender.  wich,  ii.  126-127.   A  similar  direction 

»  See  Carte's  memorandum,  where  was  given  to  the  Jacobite  members 

Godolphin  is  described  as  the   sin-  in  Feb.  1712-3.— Macpherson,  ii.  382- 

cerest    friend    the     Pretender    ever  383. 
had.— Macpherson's  Original  Papers,  '  Macpherson,  ii.  280. 


CH.  I.  POLICY   OF   THE  MINISTERS.  U5 

communications  with  the  Hanoverians,  with  the  Jacobites, 
and  even  with  tlie  Whigs ;  intimated  from  time  to  time 
his  willingness  to  co-operate  with  the  more  moderate  Whigs ; 
tried,  to  the  great  indignation  of  the  October  Club,  to 
divide  the  employments  between  the  High  and  Low  Church  ; 
talked  obscurely  of  the  necessity  of  avoiding  alike  Scylla 
and  Cliarybdis,  and  had  the  air  of  a  man  who  was  still  un- 
certain as  to  the  course  he  would  ultimately  pursue.'  Bolino-- 
broke,  on  the  other  hand,  though  utterly  destitute  of  the  beliefs 
and  enthusiasms  of  a  genuine  Jacobite,  flung  himself,  from  the 
end  of  1712,*  with  decisive  impetuosity,  into  the  Jacobite 
cause,  which  he  now  regarded  as  the  only  hope  for  the  future  of 
his  party.  The  peace  was  emphatically  a  Tory  measure,  and 
he  had  taken,  beyond  all  otlier  statesmen,  a  leading  part  in 
negotiating  it,  but  the  Court  of  Hanover  had  protested 
against  it  in  the  strongest  terms,  and  had  thrown  all  its 
influence  into  the  scale  of  the  Whigs.  Besides  this  a  bitter 
animosity  and  jealousy  had  arisen  between  Bolingbroke  and 
Oxford  ;  and  while  the  more  moderate  Tories  usually  supported 
the  latter,  the  former  endeavoured  to  rally  around  him  the 
extreme  Church  party  by  the  stringency  of  his  measures  against 
the  Dissenters,  and  the  Jacobites  by  throwing  himself  heartily 
into  the  cause  of  the  Pretender. 

In  this  manner  the  balance  in  the  last  years  of  Queen  Anne 
hung  very  doubtfully.  The  ministry  and  the  Parliament, 
indeed,  openly  professed  their  attachment  to  the  Protestant 
succession.     The  Queen,   in  more  than  one  speech  from  the 

•  Ibid.  ii.  380,  StK).  In  Feb.  1712-3,  Hanoverian    secretary,   ^\Tote  :    'My 

the  best  judges  on  both  sides  seem  to  Lord  Oxford  is  devoted  irrecoverably 

have  thought  him  Jacobite.   Plunket,  to  the  Pretender  and  to  the  King  of 

one  of  the  leading  Jacobite  agents,  France.'  —  Ibid.   p.   472.     There   are 

wrote   in   this  month,    '  Mr.  Harley  numerous  other    passages    in    these 

manages  the  Low  Church  and  Han-  paj^ers  illustrating  the   fluctuations, 

nover  till  he  can  get  the  peace  settled.  uncertainties, and  intrigues  of  Oxford. 

Believes  him  hearty  to   the  King's  See,  too,  the  LoekhaH  Pajicrs,  i.  3(55, 

interest,  and  has  several  instances  of  482.     Mini,  de  Benviel',  ii.  126-133. 
it,  though  few  of  the  Jacobites  believe    '       »  Macpherson,  ii.  3G6-7.   Locliliait 

him  to  be  so.' — Macpherson,  ii.  388.  Papers,  i.  412-413. 
In  the   same    month   Eobethon,   the 

VOL,  I.  11 


146  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

throne,  declared  that  it  was  in  no  danger.  Both  Houses  of 
Parliament  passed  votes  to  the  same  efifect.  Both  Houses 
voted  large  sums  for  the  apprehension  of  the  Pretender  in  case 
he  landed  in  Great  Britain.  In  both  Houses  addresses  were 
carried  uroing  his  expulsion  from  Lorraine,  to  which  he  had 
gone  after  the  peace.  But  at  this  very  time  the  leading  ministers 
were  deeply  implicated  in  Jacobite  plots,  and  the  administration 
of  every  branch  of  the  service  was  passing  rapidly  into  Jacobite 
hands.  Ormond,  who  was  a  Jacobite,  was  at  the  head  of  the  army, 
and  was  made  Governor  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  at  one  of  which 
the  new  sovereign  would  probably  arrive.  The  government  of 
Scotland  was  soon  after  bestowed  on  the  Jacobite  Earl  of  Mar, 
while  the  government  of  Ireland  was  in  a  great  degree  in  the 
hands  of  its  Jacobite  Chancellor,  Sir  Constantine  Phipps.  When 
the  army  was  reduced  after  the  peace,  it  was  noticed  that 
oflBcers  of  known  Whig  tendencies  were  systematically  laid 
aside,^  and  the  most  important  trusts  were  given  to  suspected 
Jacobites.  The  same  process  was  gradually  extending  over  the 
less  conspicuous  civil  posts.^  The  sentiments  of  the  Queen 
herself  were  undecided  or  vacillating.  Her  brother  had 
written  to  her  in  1711  and  1712,^  but  it  does  not  appear  that  she 
replied.  She  was  drawn  to  him  by  a  feeling  of  natural  affection, 
by  a  feeling,  at  least  as  strong,  of  jealousy  and  antipathy  towards 
the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  by  a  conviction  that  according  to  the 
principles  of  her  Church  any  departure  from  the  strict  order  of 
succession  was  criminal,  and  in  the  last  part  of  her  reign  by  the 
influence  of  Lady  Masham.  On  the  other  hand,  she  knew  that 
if  her  brother's  title  was  good,  her  own  was  invalid,  she  looked 
with  dread  upon  the  prospect  of  a  Popish  successor,  and  the 
Duchess  of  Somerset,  who  for  a  short  time  rivalled  the  influence 
of  Lady  Masham,  was  decidedly  Hanoverian.  The  Queen  felt 
at  the  same  time  the  very  natural  antipathy  of  a  nervous 
invalid  to  a  constant  discussion  of  what  was  to  come  after  her 

'  Macpherson's    Original  Papers,       borough,  ch.  cxi. 
ii.  412.  3  Macpherson,  ii.  223,  295. 

^  Ibid.    ii.    439 ;     Coxe's    Marl- 


CH,  I.  FEELINGS   OF   THE  QUEEN.  147 

death,  and  to  the  constant  mention  of  a  successor.  In  July 
1712  she  permitted  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  to  sound  her 
on  the  subject,  and  he  easily  gathered  that  the  Catholicism  of 
her  brother  alone  prevented  her  from  favouring  his  succession.' 
She  was  said  to  attribute  the  death  of  her  children  to  the  part 
she  had  taken  in  dethroning  her  father.^  Her  health  was 
rapidly  giving  way,  and  the  perplexities  of  her  own  mind, 
and  the  intrigues  and  dissensions  of  her  ministers  probably 
accelerated  her  end.  The  Whig  party  now  strongly  urged  the 
necessity  of  some  member  of  the  Electoral  family  being  in 
England  at  the  time  of  her  death,  but  the  Queen  was  inflexibly 
opposed  to  such  a  course,  and  it  is  probable  if  he  had  come 
over  contrary  to  her  wishes  it  would  have  produced  a  revulsion 
of  feeling  very  unfavourable  to  his  cause.'  Alarming  rumours 
were  spread  that  the  Pretender  was  about  to  be  invited  over, 
that  he  was  receiving  instructions  from  an  Anglican  clergyman, 
that  he  was  about  to  declare  his  adherence  to  the  Protestant 
Church.  The  Electress  Sophia  was  now  very  old,  and  the 
Elector,  who  managed  her  affairs,  refused  to  make  any  real 
sacrifice  in  the  cause,  and  appeared  to  be  chiefly  anxious  to 
extract  as  much  money  as  possible  from  the  English  Ex- 
chequer. He  refused  to  send  over  his  son.  He  refused,  on 
the  plea  of  poverty,  to  furnish  the  secret  service  money  which 
his  partisans  pronounced  to  be  absolutely  indispensable,  while 

'  Maspherson,   ii.  327-331.     See,  in  that  way  the  Pretender  would  not 

too,  her  interview  with  Lockhart,  in  have   failed    to    follow   him   imme- 

1710. — LockhaH  Pajjen,  i.  315.  diately,    and    that    he    would   have 

^  Ibid.  pp.  503-501.  -  found  liere  all  the  dispositions  which 

'  Baron  von  Steinghens,  who  was  the  spite    and   rage  of    an  insulted 

at  this  time  residing  in  London  as  Court  and    party  could    inspire ;   so 

Minister  of  the  Elector  Palatine,  and  much  horror  people  have  of  falling 

who,  while  a  strong  Hanoverian,  was  again  under  the   domination  of  the 

also  a  warm   sjTupathiser  with   the  Whigs,  the   hatred  of  whom  can  be 

Government,  wnrote, '  I  can  assure  you,  compared  to  nothing  better  than  that 

in  spite  of  the  fine  promises  of  the  of  the  Catholic  Netherlands  against 

Whigs,   that  the   Parliament    would  the  Dutch,  either  for  atrocity  or  for 

never  have  voted  one  sou  for  the  sub-  extent;  for  I  am  well  assured  that 

sistence  of  this  prince  if  he  had  come  there  are  more  than  thirty  Tories  for 

against  the  will  of  the  Queen,  and  I  can  'one  Whig  in  this  kingdom.' — To  Schu- 

tell  you  still  more,  that  I  have  learnt  lenburg,  June  5, 1714  (N.S.) ;  Kemble 

from  people  of  the  first  order  that  if  State  Papers,  p.  502.     See,  too,  Mac- 

the  prince  had  come  to  this  kingdom  ■  pherson,  ii.  629. 


148  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

at  the  same  time  he  pertinaciously  urged  the  Grovernmeiit  to  give 
a  pension  to  bis  mother,  and  to  pay  the  arrears  due  to  his 
troops,  which  had  remained  with  the  allies  before  Quesnoy. 
Oxford  favoured  the  latter  claim,  and  his  cousin,  the  auditor 
Harley,  introduced  the  sum  clandestinely  into  the  estimates ; 
but  Bolingbroke,  having  heard  of  it,  called  a  meeting  of  the 
Cabinet,  and  at  his  desire  the  claim  was  disallowed.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  Tories  were  Jacobites,  only  because  they  in- 
ferred from  the  attitude  of  the  Elector  that  he  was  completely 
identified  with  the  Whigs,  and  that  his  accession  to  the  throne 
would  be  a  signal  for  the  overthrow  of  the  party,  but  George 
Lewis  made  no  attempt  whatever  to  calm  their  fears.  ^  He 
made  no  overture  to  the  ministry,  which  commanded  a  large 
majority  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  in  the  country,  and, 
since  the  creation  of  the  twelve  peers,  a  small  majority  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  He  did  not  trouble  himself  to  learn  even  the 
rudiments  of  the  language  of  the  people  over  whom  he  was  to 
rule,  nor  did  he  show  the  smallest  interest  in  their  Church.  His 
conduct  in  this  respect  was  contrasted  with  that  of  William, 
who,  some  time  before  he  came  to  the  throne,  went  frequently 
with  his  wife  to  the  English  Church.^ 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  under  these  circumstances  the 
Protestant  succession  was  in  extreme  danger,  and  there  was 
great  fear  that  the  intervention  of  French  troops  on  the  side  of 
the  Pretender,  and  of  Dutch  troops  on  the  side  of  the  Elector, 
might  have  made  England  the  theatre  of  a  great  civil  war. 
The  immense  majority  of  the  landed  gentry  and  the  immense 
majority  of  the  lower  clergy  were  ardent  Tories ;    these  two 

'  This  was  strongly  urged  by  some  the  nation,  and  endeavour  to  abolish 

of  the  foreign  observers.  Thus  Stein-  these  factions.' — Ibid.  p.  506. 

ghens  wrote:  '  The  Hanoverian  Tories  ^  SwitVs  M-eethouffhts  on  the  Pre- 

are  the  party  which  must  be  looked  sent  State  of  Affairs.   Macpherson,  ii. 

after,  for  it  is  an  illusion  to  believe  467-468.     See,  too,  on  the  great  in- 

that  the  Whigs  alone  can  bring  in  difference  shown   by  the    Elector  to 

the  House  of  Hanover.' — To  Schulen-  the  throne  of  England  at  the  very 

burg,  May  12, 1714  (N.S.);  Kemble,p.  time  when  the    Queen    was   dying, 

493.   Leibnitz  wrote :  '  They  would  be  a  letter  of  Schulenburg  to  Leibnitz.— 

very  wrong  at  Hanover  to  attach  them-  Correspondance     dc     Leibnitz    arec 

selves  only  to  the  Whigs  ;  they  ought  L'Electrice  Soj?Me,  iii.  76. 
to  attach  themselves  to  the  bulk  of 


CH.  I.  IMPORTANCE   OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  QUESTION.  149 

formed  incomparably  the  strongest  classes  in  England,  and  it 
appeared  probable  that  in  this  great  crisis  of  the  national  his- 
tory, under  the  influence  of  counteracting  motives,  they  would 
remain  perfectly  passive.     They  hated  the  Whigs  and  Noncon- 
formists, and  they  saw  in  the  Hanoverian  succession  the  ruin  of 
their  party.    Their  leanings  and  their  principles  were  all  on  the 
side  of  the  legitimate  line.    They  looked  with  a  strong  English 
aversion  to  a  German  Lutheran  prince,  who  could  not  even  speak 
the  language  of  his  subjects.     On  the  other  hand,  they  dreaded 
receiving  a  sovereign  from  France,  and,  above  all,  they  would 
never  draw  the  sword  for  a  king  of  the  religion  which  was  most 
hateful  to  the  English  people,  and  most  hostile  to  the  English 
Church.     Had  the  Pretender  consented  to  change  or  even  to 
dissemble   his   creed,  everything   would,  most  probably,  have 
been   changed,  but,  with   a  magnanimity  that  may   be   truly 
called  heroic,  all  through  these  doubtful  and  trying  years,  he 
steadily   resisted    the    temptation.        He    was    always    ready 
indeed,  to  promise  a  toleration,  but  he  suffered  no  obscurity 
to  hang  upon  his  own    sentiments.      'Plain  dealing   is   best 
in  all  things,'  he  wrote  in  May  1711,  'especially  in  matters 
of  religion  ;  and  as  I  am  resolved  never  to  dissemble  in  religion, 
so  I  shall  never  tempt  others  to  do  it,  and  as  well  as  I  am 
satisfied  of  the  truth  of  my  own  religion,  yet  I  shall  never  look 
worse    upon    any    persons    because   in   this   they   chance    to 
differ  with  me.  .  .  .  But  they  must  not  take  it  ill  if  I  use 
the  same  liberty  I  allow  to  others,  to  adhere  to  the  religion 
which  I  in  my  conscience  think  the  best.' '     In  September  1713 
the  same  sentiments  were  strenuously  repeated  by  one  of  his 
confidential   advisers,    in   reply  to    a    remonstrance   of  Lord 
Mar.     It  was  emphatically  stated  that  there  was  no  chance  or 
possibility  of  a  change  of  creed,  and  the  Jacobites  were  ordered 
not  only  not  to  encoiu-age,  but  steadily  to  deny  all  rumours  to 
an  opposite  effect.     '  If  it  were  to  receive  a  crown,'  added  the 
writer,  '  the  King  would  not  do  a  thing  that  might  reproach 

'  Macpherson's  Original  Papers,  ii.  225. 


150  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH,  i. 

either  his  honour  or  sincerity.  ...  If  his  friends  require  this 
condition   from   him   they   do   him  no   favour;  for   he  could 
compound  at  that  rate  with  his  greatest  enemies.'  ^     In  March 
1714,  when  the  Queen  was  manifestly  dying,  and  when   one 
more  urgent  demand  was  made  upon  the  Pretender  by  those 
who  had   most   weight   in   the   government   of  England,   he 
answered  with  his    own   hand :    '  I  neither  want   counsel   nor 
advice  to  remain  unalterable  in  my  fixed  resolution  of  never 
dissembling  my  religion ;  but  rather  to  abandon  all  than  act 
against  my  conscience  and  honour,  cost  what  it  will.  .  .  .  How 
could  ever  my  subjects  depend  upon  me  or  be  happy  under  me  if 
I  should  make  use  of  such  a  notorious  hypocrisy  to  get  myself 
amongst  them  ?  .  .  .  My  present  sincerity,  at  a  time  it  may  cost 
me  so  dear,  ought  to  be  a  sufficient  earnest  to  them  of  my  reli- 
gious observance  of  whatever  I  promise  them.'  '^     Such  an  ap- 
peal, coming  from  a  Protestant,  would  have  been  irresistible, 
but  coming  from  a  Catholic  it  only  increased  the  uneasiness  and 
distrust.     It  showed  that  his  devotion  to  his  creed  amounted  to 
a  passion,  and  it  was   the  strong  conviction   of  the   English 
people   that  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  Catholic  creed  that  in 
cases  in  which   its   interests  are  concerned,  it  can    sap,  in  a 
thorough   devotee,   every  obligation  of  secular  honour.     In   a 
mind  thoroughly   imbued  with   the   Catholic   enthusiasm,   at- 
tachment to   the  corporate   interest  of  the   Church  gradually 
destroys  and  replaces  the  sentiment  of  patriotism.     The  belief 
in  the  power  of  the  Church  to  absolve  from  the   obligation 
of  an   oath    annuls  the    binding    force  of    the    most  solemn 
engagements.     The  Chm-ch  is  looked  upon  as  so  emphatically 
the  one  centre  upon  earth  of  guidance,  inspiration,  and  truth, 
that  duty  is  at  last  regarded  altogether  through  its  medium ; 
its  interests  and  its  precepts  become  the  supreme  measure  of 
right  and  wrong,  and  men  speedily  conclude  that  no  course  can 
possibly   be  criminal  which  is  conducive   to  its  progress  and 
sanctioned  by  its  head. 

'  Macpherson's  Original  Papers,  pp.  436-437.  -  Ibid.  ii.  525-526. 


CH.  1.  IMPORTANCE   OF   THE  RELIGIOUS  QUESTION.  151 

The  language  of  the  Jacobites  and  Hanoverians  on  this 
subject  substantially  agrees,  and  their  numerous  confidential 
letters  enable  us  to  form  a  very  clear  notion  of  the  state  of 
feeling  prevailing  in  England.  Thus  the  eminent  Nonjuror 
Lesley  wrote,  in  April  1711,  that  if  James  would  induce  the 
French  sovereign  to  connive  at '  allowing  the  Protestant  domes- 
tics of  the  King  of  England  to  assemble  themselves  from  time 
to  time  at  St.  Germain's,  in  order  to  worship  God  in  the 
most  secret  manner  that  possibly  could  be,  that  would  do  more 
service  [to  the  Jacobite  cause]  than  10,000  men.  For  in  Eng- 
land that  would  appear  as  a  sort  of  toleration  with  regard  to  his 
attendants ;  and  being  obtained  by  his  Britannic  Majesty,  every- 
one would  consider  it  as  a  mark  of  his  inclination  to  favour  his 
Protestant  subjects,  and  as  a  pledge  of  what  they  might  expect 
from  him  when  he  was  restored  to  his  throne.  ...  If  it  could 
be  said  in  England  that  the  King  has  procured  for  the  Pro- 
testant servants  who  attend  him  the  liberty  which  is  here 
proposed  for  them,  that  would  be  half  the  way  to  his  restoration. 
I  only  repeat  here  the  very  words  which  I  have  heard  from 
sensible  men  in  London.' '  '  The  best  part  of  the  gentry  and 
half  the  nobility,'  wrote  another  Jacobite  a  year  later,  '  are  re- 
solved to  have  the  King,  and  Parliament  would  do  it  in  a  year 
if  it  could  be  believed  he  had  changed  his  religion.'  ^  '  I  am 
convinced,'  wrote  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  in  July  1712,  'that 
if  Harry  [the  King]  would  return  to  the  Church  of  England 
all  would  be  easy.  Nay,  from  what  I  know,  if  he  would  but 
barely  give  hopes  he  w^ould  do  so,  my  brother  [Queen  Anne] 
would  do  all  he  can  to  leave  him  his  estate.' ^  'The  country 
gentlemen,'  said  an  agent  of  remarkable  acuteness,  '  are  for 
the  Princess  Anne  and  her  ministers,  and  will  not  be  for 
Hanover.  .  .  .  The  Parliament  will  declare  neither  way.  Their 
business  will  be  to  secure  the  Protestant  religion  and  order 
matters  so  that  it  will  not  be  in  the  King's  power  ever  to  hurt 
it.  .  .  .  The  country  gentlemen  will  never  be  reconciled  to  the 

»  Macpherson's  Original  Panerx,  ii.        *  Ibid.  ii.  206. 
216.  '  Ibid.  ii.  329. 


152  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

Whigs.  .  .  .  Most  of  them  are  for  having  the  King,  but  will 
hazard  nothing.'  ^  Another  Jacobite  writes  in  April  1713  that 
if  he  were  the  Pope  he  would  oblige  James  to  declare  himself  a 
Protestant,  as  the  safest  way  of  securing  the  crown,  and  estab- 
lishing Catholicism,  '  and  when  he  completes  the  work  appear 
with  safety  in  his  own  shape,  and  not  be  beholden  to  anybody.'  ^ 
Another,  writing  in  August  1713,  predicted  that  the  new  Parlia- 
ment would  effect  the  restoration  if  the  Queen  lived  long  enough 
to  let  it  sit.  *  But  the  terms  will  be  cruel  and  unfit  to  be  taken  ; 
but  if  once  in  possession  the  power  of  altering,  in  time,  will  of 
course  follow.'  ^  The  language  from  the  Hanoverian  side  was 
little  different.  Thus  Eobethon,  a  Secretary  of  the  Embassy  at 
Hanover,  wrote  in  January  1712-13:  '  The  Pretender,  on  the 
slightest  appearance  of  pretended  conversion,  might  ruin  all,  the 
religion,  the  liberties,  the  privileges  of  the  nation.'  ^  Stanhope, 
in  October  1713,  laid  his  view  of  the  state  of  affairs  before 
Schutz,  the  envoy  of  the  Elector  in  England.  '  He  does  not 
think  there  will  be  fewer  Whig-s  in  the  next  Parliament  than  in 
the  last,  but  he  has  a  very  bad  opinion  of  it,  .  .  .  his  opinion 
is  that  if  things  continue  never  so  short  a  time  upon  the  present 
footing,  the  Elector  will  not  come  to  the  crown  unless"  he  comes 
with  an  army.  He  believes  the  greatest  number  of  the  country 
gentlemen  are  rather  against  us  than  for  us,  but  to  make 
amends  he  assures  us  that  the  wisest  heads  and  most  honest 
members  have  our  interest  at  heart.'  ^  Marlborough  again  and 
again  wrote  describing  the  Protestant  succession  as  in  imminent 
danger.^  Schutz  wrote  to  his  Court  in  February  1713-14,  *  The 
real  state  of  this  kingdom  is  that  all  honest  men,  without  distinc- 
tion of  party,  acknowledge  that  although  of  every  ten  men  in 
the  nation,  nine  should  be  for  us,  it  is  certain  that  of  fifteen 
Tories  there  are  fourteen  who  would  not  oppose  the  Pretender 
in  case  he  came  with  a  French  army ;  but  instead  of  making 
any  resistance  to  him  would  be  the  first  to  receive  and  acknow- 
ledge him.' ' 

'  Macpherson,  ii.  pp.  392-393.  ^  j^id,  pp_  .505-506. 

2  Ibid.  p.  399.  6  Coxe's  Marliorough,  ch.  cxi. 

*  Ibid.  p.  424.  ■>  Macpherson,  ii.  556. 

*  Ibid.  p.  466. 


i 


CH.  1.  ADVANTAGES  OF  THE  WHIGS.  153 

In  this  conflict  of  parties  the  Whigs  had  some  powerful 
advantages.  The  country  districts,  where  Toryism  was  most 
rife,  are  never  prompt  in  organising  or  executing  a  revolution  ; 
while  the  Whigs,  though  numerically  fewer,  were  tc  be  found 
chiefly  in  the  great  centres  of  commercial  activity,  among  the 
active  and  intelligent  population  of  the  towns.  Besides  this  the 
Whigs  were  earnest  and  united  in  advocating  the  Protestant 
succession,  while  their  opponents  were  for  the  most  part  luke- 
warm, uncertain,  or  divided.  The  number  of  unqualified 
Jacobites  who  would  place  the  government  of  the  country  with- 
out conditions  in  the  hands  of  a  Roman  Catholic  sovereign 
was,  probably,  very  small.  A  large  division  of  the  party  were 
only  prepared  to  restore  the  Stuarts  after  negotiations  that 
would  secure  their  Church  from  all  possible  danger ;  and  they 
were  conscious  that  it  was  not  easy  to  make  such  terms,  that  it 
was  extremely  doubtful  whether  they  would  be  observed  by  a 
Catholic  sovereign,  and  that  the  very  idea  of  imposing  terms 
and  conditions  of  obedience  was  entirely  repugnant  to  their 
own  theory  of  monarchy.  Another  section,  usually  led  by  Sir 
Thomas  Hanmer,  regarded  the  dangers  of  a  Catholic  sovereign 
as  sufficient  to  outweigh  all  other  considerations,  and  its  mem- 
bers were  in  consequence  sincerely  attached  to  the  Hanoverian 
succession,  and  desired  only  that  it  should  be  preceded  by  such 
negotiations  as  would  secure  their  party  a  reasonable  share  of 
power.  The  opinions  of  the  great  mass  of  the  party  who  were 
not  actively  engaged  in  politics  oscillated  between  these  two, 
and  were  compounded,  in  different  and  fluctuating  proportions, 
of  attachment  to  the  legitimate  line,  hatred  of  Germans, 
Whigs,  and  Dissenters,  dread  of  French  influence,  and  detesta- 
tion of  Popery.  The  Whigs,  too,  had  the  great  advantage  of 
resting  upon  the  distinct  letter  of  the  law.  It  was,  indeed,  not 
forgotten  that  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  was,  perhaps,  the  most 
glorious  in  English  history,  and  that  Elizabeth  had  mounted 
the  throne  in  defiance  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,  whicli  had  pro- 
nounced her  to  be  illegitimate  ;  yet  still,  as  long  as  the  Act  of 
Settlement  remained,  the  Jacobite  was  in  the  position  of  a  con- 


154  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

spirator,  he  was  compelled  to  employ  one  language  in  public 
while  he  employed  another  in  private,  and  the  great  moral 
weight  which  in  England  always  attaches  to  the  law  was 
against  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the  power  of  a  united  .ad- 
ministration, supported  by  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
was  extremely  great.  It  was  more  than  probable  that  it  could 
determine  the  course  of  affairs  immediately  after  the  decease  of 
the  Queen,  and  when  either  claimant  was  in  power  he  was  sure 
to  command  the  support  of  those  large  classes  whose  first  desire 
was  to  strengthen  authority  and  avert  civil  war. 

But  the  Grovernment  was  far  from  being  powerful  or  united. 
The  peace,  though  it  had  excited  some  clamours,  was  not 
sufficient  seriously  to  shake  it,  but  the  commercial  treaty  with 
France,  which  immediately  followed  it,  led  to  an  explosion  of 
party  feeling  of  the  most  formidable  character.  It  is  somewhat 
humiliating  that  the  measure  which  most  seriously  injured  the 
Tory  ministry  of  Anne  was  that  which  will  now  be  almost 
universally  regarded  as  their  chief  glory.  The  object  of 
Bolingbroke  was  to  establish  a  large  measure  of  free  trade  be- 
tween England  and  France;  and,  had  he  succeeded,  he  would  have 
unquestionably  added  immensely  both  to  the  commercial  pro- 
sperity of  England,  and  to  the  probabilities  of  a  lasting  peace. ^ 
The  eighth  and  ninth  articles  of  the  Treaty,  which  formed  the 
great  subject  of  discussion,  provided  that  all  subjects  of  the 
sovereigns  of  Great  Britain  and  France,  in  all  places,  subject 
to  their  power  on  either  side,  should  enjoy  the  same  commercial 
privileges  in  all  matters  relating  to  duties,  impositions,  customs, 
immunities,  and  tribunals,  as  the  most  favoured  foreign  nation  ; 
that  within  two  months  the  English  Parliament  should  pass  a 
law  repealing  all  prohibitions  of  French  goods  which  had  been 
imposed  since  1664,  and  enacting  that  no  French  goods 
imported  into  England  should  pay  higher  duties  than  similar 
goods  imported  from  any  other  Em-opean  country  ;  while,  on  the 

'  See  his  own  admirably  statesman-       Bolingbroke  s    Letters,    iv.   137-142, 
like  letters  on  the  subject  to  Shrews-       ISl-loi. 
bury  (May  29),  and  tc  Prior  (Ivlay  31 ). 


CH.  1.  THE   TREATY   OF   COMMERCE.  155 

other  hand,  the  French  repealed  all  prohibitions  of  English 
goods  enacted  since  1GG4-,  and  restored  the  tariff  of  that  year. 
Some  classes  of  goods,  however,  it  was  desired  to  exempt 
from  these  provisions,  and  commissioners  on  both  sides  were 
appointed  to  adjust  their  details. 

One  of  the  effects  of  this  measure  was  virtually  to  abolish 
the  Methuen  treaty,  which  had  been  contracted  with  Portugal 
in  1703.  By  that  treaty  it  had  been  provided  that  England 
should  admit  Portuguese  wines  at  a  duty  one-third  less  than  that 
imposed  on  French  wines,  and  that  in  consideration  of  this 
favour  English  woollen  manufactures  should  be  admitted  into 
Portugal  on  payment  of  moderate  duties.  A  charge  of  bad 
faith  was  on  this  ground  raised  against  the  English  Government, 
but  the  very  words  of  the  Methuen  treaty  were  sufficient  to 
refute  it.  The  right  of  the  English  to  revise  their  tariff  was 
clearly  reserved  by  the  clause  which  stated  that,  '  if  at  any  time 
this  deduction  or  abatement  of  customs,  which  is  to  be  made  as 
aforesaid,  shall  in  any  manner  be  attempted  and  prejudiced,  it 
shall  be  just  and  lawful  for  his  sacred  royal  Majesty  of  Portugal 
again  to  prohibit  the  woollen  cloths,  and  the  rest  of  the  British 
woollen  manufactures.'  The  question  was  solely  one  of  expediency. 
The  Portuguese  announced,  as  they  had  a  perfect  right  to  do, 
that  when  the  French  wines  were  placed  on  a  level  with  their 
own  they  would  withdraw  the  privileges  they  had  given  to  the 
English  woollen  manufactm-es,  and  the  sole  question  for  an 
English  statesman  was  whether  the  advantages  given  to  British 
trade  by  the  treaty  with  France  were  sufficient  to  compensate 
for  this  withdrawal.  On  this  subject  there  cannot  be  a  shadow 
of  rational  doubt.  The  enormous  market  which  the  English 
woollen  manufactures  would  have  received  in  France  immeasur- 
ably outweighed  any  advantages  England  could  have  received 
from  the  Portuguese  trade.  The  manner,  however,  in  which  the 
proposition  was  received  in  England  is  one  of  the  most  curious 
instances  on  record  of  the  influence  of  an  entirely  delusive 
theory  of  political  economy  on  general  policy.  According  to 
the  mercantile   theory   which   was    then    in    the    ascendant. 


156  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

money  alone  is  wealth,  the  one  end  in  commerce  is  to  obtain 
as  large  a  share  as  possible  of  the  precious  metals,  and  there- 
fore no  commerce  can  be  advantageous  if  the  value  of  the 
imports  exceeds  that  of  the  exports.  In  estimating  the 
comparative  value  of  commerce  with  different  nations  we  have 
not  to  consider  the  magnitude  of  the  transaction — we  have 
simply  to  ask  in  what  form  England  receives  the  price  of  the 
articles  she  exports.  If  the  balance  is  in  money  the  affair  is 
for  her  advantage ;  if  it  is  in  goods  the  commerce  is  a  positive 
evil,  for  it  diminishes  the  amount  of  the  precious  metals.  In 
accordance  with  this  theory  elaborate  statistics  were  made  of 
every  branch  of  national  commerce,  showing  which  were  advan- 
tageous and  which  detrimental  to  the  nation.  In  the  former 
category  was  the  trade  of  Portugal,  which  the  new  treaty  would 
probably  destroy,  for  although  we  brought  home  wine,  oil, 
and  some  other  things  for  ovir  own  consumption,  considerably  the 
greater  part  of  our  returns  was  in  silver  and  gold.  The  com- 
merce with  Spain,  with  Italy,  with  Hamburg  and  other  places 
in  Grermany,  and  with  Holland,  was  for  the  same  reason 
advantageous,  and  continually  increased  the  wealth  of  the 
community.  The  commerce  with  France,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  a  positive  evil,  for  the  productions  of  that  country  were  so 
useful  and  so  highly  valued  by  Englishmen  that  England 
received  goods  to  a  greater  value  than  she  exported.  The 
difference  was,  of  course,  paid  in  money,  and  the  trade  was,  in 
consequence,  according  to  the  mercantile  theory,  a  perpetual 
and  a  growing  evil.  It  was  estimated  by  leading  commercial 
authorities  that,  if  the  provisions  of  the  commercial  treaty  were 
executed,  there  would  soon  be  an  annual  balance  against  England  ■ 
of  more  than  1,400,000L,  while,  at  the  same  time,  France,  by  her 
greater  cheapness  of  labour,  could  undersell  the  English  in  some 
of  their  most  successful  trades.  The  treaty  left  England  at  perfect 
liberty  to  impose  whatever  duties  she  pleased  on  the  importa- 
tion of  French  goods  provided  the  same  duties  were  imposed 
on  similar  articles  imported  from  other  countries,  but  in 
spite  of   this  fact  it  was    confidently    asserted    that  French 


en.  I.  THE   TREATY   OF   COMMERCE.  157 

competition  would  ruin  the  wool  trade  and  the  silk  trade  at 
home.  A  wild  panic  passed  through  the  trading  classes,  and 
was  vehemently  fanned  by  the  whole  Wliig  party  and  by  the 
greatest  financial  authorities  in  the  countiy.  Godolphin  was 
dead,  but  Halifax,  the  founder  of  the  financial  system  of  the 
Revolution,  was  prominent  in  the  Opposition.  Walpole,  the 
ablest  of  the  rising  financiers,  took  the  same  side.  Stanhope 
eulogised  the  law  of  Cliarles  II.  absolutely  forbidding  the  im- 
portation of  French  goods  into  England.  The  Bank  of  England 
and  the  Turkey  Company  threw  all  tlieir  weight  into  the  struggle. 
Three  out  of  the  four  members  of  the  City  of  London,  as  well 
as  the  two  members  for  Westminster,  voted  against  tlie  Bill,  and 
many  merchants  were  heard  on  the  same  side  at  the  bar  of  the 
House.  Defoe  attempted  to  stem  the  tide  in  a  periodical  called 
the  '  Mercator,'  but  the  leading  merchants  set  up  a  rival  paper 
called  '  The  British  Merchant,'  which  acquired  an  extraordinary 
influence.  They  maintained  that  the  treaty,  if  carried  into  effect, 
would  be  more  ruinous  to  the  British  nation  than  if  London 
were  laid  in  ashes,  that  from  that  moment  the  wealth  of  Enefland 
must  be  steadily  drained  away  into  the  coffers  of  France,  that 
England  would  lose  her  best  markets  both  at  home  and  abroad, 
that  rents  must  inevitably  sink,  and  that  the  common  people 
must  either  starve  for  want  of  work,  be  thrown  for  subsistence 
on  the  parish,  or  seek  their  bread  in  foreign  lands.  Still 
more  alarming  was  the  revolt  of  a  large  section  of  the  Tories 
under  the  guidance  of  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer.  The  strength 
of  these  combined  influences  was  such  that  at  its  last  stage 
the  Bill  was  lost  in  the  Commons  by  194  to  185.' 

The  effect  of  this  defeat  on  the  stability  of  the  Government 
was  very  perceptible.  The  immediate  danger  of  a  catastrophe 
was,  it  is  true,  averted  by  a  vote  of  confidence  expressing  a 
general  satisfaction  with  the  peace ;  but  a  ministry  which  has 
been  once  defeated  on  a  capital  question  rarely  recovers  its 
moral  force.     As  Bolingbroke  graphically  expressed  it,  *  Instead 

'  Pari.  Hist.  vi.  1220-1223.    Biir-       British   Merchant.     Craik's   Hist,  of 
net's  Own   Times,  ii.  622-623.     The       Commerce,  ii.  165-170. 


158  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

of  gathering  strength  either  as  a  ministry  or  a  party,  we  grew 
weaker  every  day.  The  peace  had  been  judged  with  reason  to  be 
the  only  solid  foundation  whereupon  we  could  create  a  Tory  system ; 
and  yet  when  it  was  made  we  found  ourselves  at  a  full  stand. 
Nay,  the  very  work  which  ought  to  have  been  the  basis  of  our 
strength  was  in  part  demolished  before  our  eyes,  and  we  were 
stoned  with  the  ruins  of  it.'  ^  A  Bill,  which  was  immediately 
afterwards  carried,  for  raising  500,000^.  to  pay  the  debts  of  the 
Queen,  appeared  somewhat  strange  to  those  who  knew  the  great 
parsimony  of  her  Court,  and  somewhat  suspicious  at  a  time 
when  a  general  election  was  impending.  The  House  was 
prorogued  by  the  Queen  with  an  angry  speech  in  July  1713, 
and  in  the  following  month  it  was  dissolved.  It  was  noticed 
as  a  significant  fact  that  in  this  last  Speech  from  the  Throne 
the  customary  assurance  of  the  determination  of  the  Queen  to 
maintain  the  Protestant  succession  was  omitted. 

The  election,  however,  did  not  at  first  sight  appear  to  modify 
very  seriously  the  condition  of  parties.  Much  use  was  made 
by  the  Whigs  of  the  unpopularity  of  the  commercial  treaty  and 
of  the  anti-popery  feeling.  Whig  candidates  appeared  at  the 
hustings  wearing  pieces  of  wool  in  their  hats  ;  figures  of  the 
Pope,  the  Pretender,  and  the  devil  were  burnt  in  numerous 
places ;  and  a  few  seats  were  won ;  but  when  the  last  Parliament 
of  Queen  Anne  assembled,  it  was  found  to  contain  a  Tory  majority 
not  much  smaller  than  its  predecessor.  The  influence  of  the 
Government  had  been  exerted  to  the  utmost,  and  the  Church  was 
still  unwavering  in  its  allegiance.  In  the  March  preceding  the  dis- 
solution, the  period  during  which  Sacheverell  had  been  excluded 
from  the  pulpit  by  the  House  of  Lords  expired,  and  the  event 
was  celebrated  with  great  rejoicings  in  many  parts  of  the 
kingdom.  He  preached  his  first  sermon  in  St.  Saviour's  from 
the  text,  '  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do,'  drawing  a  tacit  parallel  between  his  own  sufferings  and 
those  of  Christ ;  and  he  was  selected  on  the  following  anniversary 

'  Letter  to  Windliani. 


CH.  1.  JACOBITE  ACTIVITY.  159 

of  the  Eestoration  to  preach  before  the  House  of  Commons,  was 
rewarded  for  his  services  to  the  party  by  the  valuable  rectory  of 
St.  Andrew's,  Holborn,  and  would  have  been  made  a  bishop 
but  for  the  refusal  of  tlie  Queen.'  In  1713  also,  Atterbury,  the 
ablest  of  the  High  Cluu-ch  Jacobites,  was  raised  to  the  bench. 
The  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  again  assumed  an 
alarming  prominence  in  the  pulpit,  aud  there  were  many  signs 
of  the  increasing  confidence  of  the  Jacobites.  The  birthday  of 
the  Pretender  was  celebrated  in  Edinburgh  with  bonfires  and 
fireworks.  In  Ireland  the  Chancellor,  Sir  Constantine  Phipps, 
was  strongly  suspected  of  Jacobite  sentiments,  and  he  was 
supported  by  the  House  of  Lords,  in  which  the  bishops  pre- 
dominated, and  by  the  Convocation.  Men  were  openly  enlisted 
for  the  service  of  the  Pretender,  and  Shrewsbury,  who  had  been 
sent  over  as  Viceroy,  found  that  the  English  Government  paid 
much  more  attention  to  the  recommendations  of  the  Chancellor 
than  to  his  own.  Sir  Patrick  Lawless,  an  Irish  Roman  Catholic, 
well  known  to  have  been  the  envoy  of  the  Pretender  at  Madrid, 
appeared  in  Loudon  with  credentials  from  King  Philip.  It 
was  reported  that  the  health  of  the  Stuart  prince  was  con- 
stantly drunk  at  meetings  and  in  clubs,  and  it  was  certain 
that  Jacobite  agents  were  constantly  arriving  from  France.  A 
metrical  edition  or  adaptation  of  some  of  the  Psalms,  written 
in  the  highest  strain  of  Tory  loyalty,  and  entitled  '  The  Loyal 
Man's  Psalter,'  was  widely  circulated  throughout  England. 
Anonymous  letters  were  sent  to  the  mayors  and  magistrates, 
during  the  elections,  urging  them  to  promote  the  interests  of 
the  Pretender,  and  suggesting  that  such  a  course  would  be 
.acceptable  to  the  Queen  and  to  her  ministers.  A  book  which 
had  lately  appeared,  called  '  The  Hereditary  Eight  of  the  Crown 
of  England  Asserted,'  maintaining  the  absolute  criminality  of 
all  departure  from  the  strict  order  of  succession,  was  distributed 
gratuitously  far  and  wide  ;    its  title-page  appeared  on  Sunday 

'  See  Lord  Dartmouth's  note  to'  who  had  a  great  contempt  for  Sache- 
. Burnet,  ii.  630;  Tindal.  Swift  is  verell,  to  give  him  the  living.— 
said  to   have   induced   Bolingbroke,       Sheiidsin's  Life  of  Sivi/t,  y>.  116. 


160  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  cm.  i. 

mornino-s  on  every  prominent  door  or  post  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  the  congregations,  and  a  copy  of  it  is  said  to  have  been 
presented  by  Nelson,  the  Nonjuror,  to  the  Queen.  Violent 
remonstrances,  however,  having  been  made,  the  Grovernment 
ordered  a  prosecution  to  be  instituted,  and  a  Nonjuror  clergy- 
man, named  Bedford,  who  was  found  guilty  of  having  brought 
the  manuscript  to  the  printer,^  incurred  a  severe  sentence,  part 
of  which  was  remitted  by  the  Queen.^ 

It  was  evident  that  the  crisis  was  at  hand.  The  Queen,  in 
the  beginning  of  1714,  had  a  very  dangerous  illness,  and  it  was 
certain  that  her  life  could  not  be  greatly  prolonged.  '  If  in 
this  life  only  they  have  hope,'  said  Wharton,  with  his  usual  pro- 
fane wit,  pointing  in  tui-n  to  the  Queen  and  to  the  ministers, 
'  they  are  of  all  men  the  most  wretched.'  The  reorganisation 
of  the  army  in  the  Jacobite  interest  was  rapidly  proceeding. 
Considerable  sums  had  been  sent,  in  1711,  by  the  Treasurer 
to  the  chiefs  of  Scotch  clans,  who  were  notoriously  Jacobite, 
with  commissions  empowering  them  to  arm  their  followers  for 
Her  Majesty's  service;^  and  in  January  1713-14  Marlborough 
wrote  to  Eobethon,  *The  ministers  drive  on  matters  so  fast  in 
favour  of  the  Pretender  that  everybody  must  agree  if  something 
farther  be  not  done  in  the  next  sessions  of  Parliament  towards 
securing  the  succession,  it  is  to  be  feared  it  may  be  irretrievably 
lost.''*  In  February,  Graultier  wrote,  at  the  dictation  of  Oxford,  a 
letter  to  the  Pretender,  in  emphatic  terms,  urging  him,  as  the 
indispensable  condition  to  obtaining  the  support  of  the  Queen 
and  ultimately  the  croAvn,  to  change,  or  at  least  to  dissemble, 
his  creed  ;  but  the  answer  was  a  refusal  so  clear  and  so  decisive 
that  it  completely  disconcerted  the  tactics  of  the  party.  Boling- 
broke  said,  with  perfect  truth,  to  Iberville,  the  French  secretary 
of  legation,  that  if  the  Elector  of  Hanover  ever  mounted  the 
English  throne  it  would  be  entirely  the  fault  of  the  Pretender, 
who  thus  refused  to  accept  the  one  essential  condition ;  and 

'  Its  author  was  a  Nonjuror,  named  Life  of  Marlborongh. 

Harbin.      See    Lathburj's    Hist,    of  ^  LocMart  Paper g,  i.  p.  377. 

the  Nonjurors.  <  Coxe's  Marlborough,  cli.  cxi. 

2  Bojer,  Tindal,  Somerville.     Coxe, 


en.  I.  SESSION  OF   1714.  161 

Iberville  liiraself  fully  shared  the  opinion,  and  predicted  that, 
without  conformity  to  the  Church  of  England,  King  Janaes 
would  never  obtain  the  sincere  support  of  the  Tories.'  Argyle, 
whose  enmity  to  Marlborough  had  been  very  useful  to  the 
ministry,  but  who  was  strongly  attached  to  the  Hanoverian  suc- 
cession, was  removed  from  all  his  places ;  and  Lord  Stair,  who 
was  also  Hanoverian,  was  obliged  to  dispose  of  his  regiment. 
Oxford,  however,  hesitated  more  and  more,  kept  up  commu- 
nications with  the  Jacobites,  but  threw  obstacles  in  the  path  of 
every  decisive  measure  in  their  favour,  sent  his  cousin  Harley  to 
Hanover  to  express  his  sentiments  of  devotion  to  the  Elector, 
tended  slowly  and  irresolutely  towards  the  "Whigs,  and  was 
trusted  by  neither  party,  but  courted  by  both.^  Bolingbroke  now 
looked  upon  his  colleague  with  a  deadly  aversion,  and  made  it 
a  main  object  of  his  policy  to  displace  him,  and  though  he  may, 
perhaps,  have  had  no  very  settled  or  irrevocable  design  of  bring- 
ing in  the  Pretender,  he  felt  that  he  had  gone  too  far  for  safety, 
and  was  anxious  at  least  to  reorganise  the  party  on  a  strong 
Church  basis,  so  that  at  the  death  of  the  Queen  he  might  be 
the  master  of  the  situation.' 

The  Parliament  met  on  the  16th  of  February,  and  it  soon 
appeared  that  the  strength  of  the  Government  was  much 
shaken.  In  the  Lords  the  Whig  majority  was  all  but  re- 
stored. In  the  Commons  the  Tories  formed  a  large  majority, 
but  their  discipline  was  broken,  they  were  divided  between  the 
Hanoverian  Tories  and  the  .Jacobites,  between  the  followers  of 
Bolingbroke  and  the  followers  of  Oxford,  and  the  jealousies,  the 

'  See  the  passages  from  the  Paris  their  little  piciues  and  resentments, 

archives  quoted  in  Lord    Stanhope's  and   cement    closely  together,   they 

Hist,  of  England,  i.  55.  will   be  too  jjowerful  a  body  to  be 

^  See   jn    Macpherson    the    Stuart  ill-treated.' — Bolingbroke's   Letters, 

and  Hanoverian  Papers  for  1714  ;  also  iv.    4!t!).       In   his   letter  to    Sir   W. 

the  Loehliart  Papers,  i.  3G9,  370.  AVindiiam,  he  afterwards  said,  '  As  to 

'  See  a  very  remarkable  passage  in  what  might  happen  afterwards  on  the 

one   of  his  letters,   April   13,    1713.  death  of  the  Queen,  to  speak  truly, 

*  The  prospect  before  us  is  dark  and  none   of  us  had  any  settled  resolu- 

melancholy.     What  will  happen   no  .  tion.'     See   also   a  letter  of   his   to 

man  is  able  to  foretell,  but  this  pro-  Lord  Marchmont. —  Marchmont  Pa- 

positioniscertain.that  if  themembers  iiers,\\.  lt)2. 
of  tlie  (Church  of  England  lay  aside 

VOL.  L  12 


162  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

vacillations,  the  conflicting  counsels  of  their  leaders  in  a  great 
degree  paralysed  their  strength.  The  Queen,  in  her  opening 
speech,  spoke  severely  of  the  excesses  of  the  press,  and  of  those 
who  had  '  arrived  to  that  height  of  malice  as  to  insinuate  that 
the  Protestant  succession  in  the  House  of  Hanover  is  in  danger 
under  my  government ;'  but  there  is  little  doubt  that  at  this 
very  time  her  sympathies  were  with  the  Pretender.  The  House 
of  Commons  expelled  Steele  ostensibly  for  the  publication  of  a 
pamphlet  called  '  The  Crisis,'  really  on  accoimt  of  his  decided 
Whig  views.  The  House  of  Lords  retaliated  by  offering  a 
reward  for  the  discovery  of  the  author  of  '  The  Public  Spirit 
of  the  Whigs,'  an  anonymous  pamphlet  which  Swift  had  written 
in  reply  to  '  Th.e  Crisis,'  and  which  had  excited  much  indignation 
in  the  North  by  its  bitter  reflections  upon  the  Scots.  The 
Whigs  in  the  House  of  Lords  brought  forward,  with  much 
effect,  the  case  of  the  Catalans  who  had  been  so  shamefully 
abandoned,  and  also  the  commercial  treaty;  and  Wharton, 
supported  by  Cowper  and  Halifax,  introduced  a  scandalous  re- 
solution urging  the  Queen  to  issue  a  proclamation  offering  a  re- 
ward for  anyone  who  should  apprehend  her  brother  alive  or  dead. 
Nothing  was  said  about  this  reward  being  contingent  upon  acts 
of  hostility  against  England,  and  it  might  have  been  claimed  by 
anyone  who  murdered  the  Pretender  while  he  was  living  peace- 
fully in  Lorraine.  The  address  was  carried  without  a  division,  but 
the  better  feeling  of  the  House  of  Lords,  after  some  reflection, 
revolted  against  it,  and  a  clause  was  substituted  merely  asking  the 
Queen  to  offer  a  reward  for  the  apprehension  of  the  Pretender 
in  case  he  landed  in  the  kingdom.'  The  Queen  answered  that 
she  saw  no  present  necessity  for  such  a  proclamation.  Several 
other  motions  for  the  defence  of  the  Hanoverian  succession 
were  carried  through  Parliament,  and  were  accepted  with 
apparent  alacrity  by  the  Government,  but  Bolingbroke,  on  at 
least  one  occasion,  privately  assured  the  French  envoy  that  they 
would  make  no  difference.^     Nor  did  they  deceive  the  people. 

'   Pari.  Hist.,  vi.  1337  -1 338.  -  Stanhope's  Hist,  of  England,  i.  p.  85. 


CH.  I.  DESIGNS   OF  BOLINGBROKE.  163 

An  uneasy  feeling  was  abroad.  Men  felt  as  if  on  the  brink 
of  a  great  convulsion.  The  stocks  fell,  and  it  was  evident 
that  the  dread  of  a  Popish  sovereign  was  in  the  ascendant. 
Mutinous  proceedings  were  reported  among  the  soldiers  at 
Gibraltar  and  some  other  quarters,  and  Bolingbroke  wrote  with 
much  alarm  about  the  necessity  of  changing  garrisons,  and 
about  the  dangerous  spirit  of  faction  wliich  had  arisen  among 
the  troops.'  The  bishops  also  began  to  waver  in  their  allegiance 
to  the  Government.  A  motion  *  that  the  Protestant  succession 
was  in  danger  under  the  present  administration,'  moved  by 
Wharton,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  was  only  defeated  by  a  majority 
of  twelve,  and  it  was  a  very  significant  fact  that  the  Archbishop 
of  York  and  the  majority  of  his  brethren  voted  against  the 
Government.  In  the  House  of  Commons  a  similar  motion  was 
defeated  by  256  to  208,  and  was  supported  by  a  considerable 
body  of  Tories  under  the  leadersliip  of  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer 
who  was  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  whose  elevation  to  that 
position  Oxford  had  warmly  supported,  in  the  vain  hope  of  in 
this  manner  diverting  him  from  opposition.'^  In  a  confidential 
letter  to  Lord  Strafford,  dated  March  23,  Bolingbroke  said : 
'  In  both  Houses  there  are  the  best  dispositions  I  ever  saw,  but 
I  am  sorry  to  tell  you  that  these  dispositions  are  unimproved  ; 
the  Whigs  pursue  their  plans  with  good  order  and  in  concert. 
The  Tories  stand  at  gaze,  expect  the  Court  should  regulate  their 
conduct  and  lead  them  on,  and  the  Court  seems  in  a  lethargy. 
Nothing,  you  see,  can  come  of  this,  but  what  would  be  at 
once  the  greatest  absurdity  and  the  greatest  misfortune.  The 
minority,  and  that  minority  unpopular,  easily  get  the  better 
of  the  majority  who  have  the  Queen  and  the  nation  on  their 
side.' '  Oxford  still  lield  the  position  of  Prime  INIinister,  and 
had  the  foremost  place  in  the  party  and  with  the  Queen,  but 
his  brilliant  and  impetuous  colleague  was  in  both  quarters 
rapidly  superseding  him,  and  with  him  the  star  of  Jacobitism 
rose  in  the  ascendant.     The  Jacobite  appointments  were  more 

'  Bolingbroke's  Letters,  iv.  489.  »  Bolingbrokes  Letters,  iv.  494. 

'  Bimbury's  Life  of  Hanrnfr,  p.  42. 


164  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTUHY.  ch.  i. 

decided  and  more  numerous,  and  the  Schism  Act,  which  was 
at  this  time  carried,  was  believed  by  the  party  to  have  in- 
timidated the  Dissenters,  and  at  the  same  time  secured  anew 
the  full  support  of  the  Church. 

And  yet  even  at  this  time  the  policy  of  Bolingbroke  was, 
probably,  less  unfaltering  than  has  been  supposed.  When 
speaking  at  a  later  period  of  these  anxious  months,  he  said : 
'  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  this  truth,  that  there  was  at  this 
time  no  formed  design  in  the  party,  whatever  views  some 
particular  men  might  have,  against  his  Majesty's  succession,' ' 
and  the  assertion,  if  not  strictly  accurate,  appears  to  me  to 
have  at  least  approximated  to  the  truth.  It  is  certain  that 
though  he  now  led  the  Jacobite  wing,  though  he  continually 
and  unreservedly  expressed  to  Jacobites  his  sympathy  with 
their  cause,^  and  though  his  policy  manifestly  tended  towards 
a  Restoration,  he  was  never  a  genuine  Jacobite.  He  was 
driven  into  Jacobitism  by  the  force  of  the  Jacobite  contingent 
in  his  party,  by  his  antagonism  to  Oxford,  which  led  him 
to  rely  more  and  more  upon  that  contingent,  by  the  increas- 
ing difficulty  of  receding  from  engagements  into  which  he  had 
entered  in  order  to  obtain  parliamentary  support,  by  the  neces- 
sity he  was  under  as  a  minister  of  the  Crown  of  opposing  the 
Whig  scheme  of  bringing  over  the  Electoral  Prince  contrary 
to  the  strongest  wishes  of  the  Queen,  by  the  violent  opposition 
of  Hanover  to  the  peace,  by  the  close  and  manifest  alliance  that 
had  been  established  between  the  Hanoverian  Court  and  the 
Whig  party.  In  his  eyes,  however,  the  restoration  of  the 
House  of  Stuart  was  not  an  end  but  a  means.  The  real  aim 
of  his  policy  was  to  maintain  the  ascendancy  of  that  Church 
or  Tory  party  which,  as  he  truly  boasted,  represented,  under 
all  normal  circumstance?,  the  overwhelming  preponderance  of 

'  Letter  to  Sir  W.  Windham.  Some  of  them  have  been  printed  in 
■■*  LockfMTt  Papers,!.  4:4:1,0:2,  i60,  the  Edinhiirgh  Review,  voL  Ixii.  and 
461,  470,  477,  478.  The  extent  of  in  Bmibury's  Life  of  Hanmer.  Lord 
Bolingbroke's  direct  negotiations  Stanhope  has  made  use  of  them  with 
with  the  Pretender  is  chiefly  shown  his  usual  skill.  See  too  the  remark- 
by  the  papers  from  the  French  ar-  able  statement  of  Walpole.  Coxe"s 
chives  in  the  Mackintosh  collection.  Walpole,  i.  48. 


CH.  I.  THE   DESIGNS   OF   BOLINGBROKE.  165 

English  opinion.  To  re-establish  that  ascendancy  which  had  been 
shaken  by  the  victories  of  Marlborough  was  the  chief  motive  of 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht;  to  secure  its  continuance  was  the  real  end 
of  his  dynastic  intrigues.  If  he  could  have  obtained  from  the 
head  of  the  House  of  Hanover  an  assurance  that  the  royal  favour, 
imder  the  new  djniasty,  would  still  be  bestowed  on  his  party,  it 
is  very  probable  that  he  would  have  supported  the  Act  of  •Settle- 
ment. But  the  Elector  was  plainly  in  the  hands  of  the  Whigs, 
and  the  party  interest  of  the  Tory  leader  attracted  him  to  the 
Stuarts.  At  the  same  time,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  his  motives, 
his  immediate  object  seems  to  have  been  to  place  the  whole  ad- 
ministration of  civil  and  military  matters  into  the  hands  of  men 
who,  while  they  had  a  certain  leaning  towards  Jacobitism,  were 
beyond  all  things  Tories,  and  might  be  trusted  fully  to  obey  a 
Tory  Government.  Had  this  been  done  he  would  have  com- 
manded the  position,  and  been  able  on  the  death  of  the  Queen 
to  dictate  his  terms  and  to  decide  the  succession.  That  his 
decision  would  have  been  in  favour  of  the  Stuarts,  his  engage- 
ments and  his  present  policy  made  most  probable,  but  it  is  also 
probable  that  to  the  very  close  of  his  ministerial  career  he  had 
never  formed  in  his  o^vn  mind  an  irrevocable  decision.  The 
result  would  probably  have  depended  on  the  relative  strength  of 
the  Jacobite  and  Hanoverian  elements  in  the  Tory  party,  on  the 
power  of  the  Opposition,  on  the  policy  of  the  rival  candidates ; 
and  a  change  in  the  religion  of  one  of  them  or  in  the  political 
attitude  of  the  other,  might,  even  at  the  last  moment,  have 
proved  decisive. 

This,  as  far  as  I  can ,  understand  it,  is  the  true  key  to  the 
policy  of  Boliugbroke.  But  his  own  very  natural  hesitation  in 
taking  a  step  that  might  cost  him  liis  head,  the  much  greater 
hesitation  of  Oxford,  and  the  activity  of  the  Whig  Opposition,  had 
hitherto  trammelled  it.  The  Peace  of  Utrecht  was  carried,  and 
it  was  a  grt^at  step  towards  Tory  ascendancy ;  but  it  is  rem.ark- 
able  that,  althougli  it  was  supported  by  the  Jacobites,  its  terms 
were  by  no  means  favourable  to  their  interest.  The  recognition 
by  France  of  the  Hanoverian  succession,  and  the  removal  of  the 


166  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

Pretender  to  Lorraine,  were  not,  indeed,  matters  of  mucli  eon- 
sequence,  but  the  arrangement  with  Holland  was  of  a  very 
different  order  of  importance.  We  have  seen  that,  by  the 
barrier  treaty  of  1709,  England  guaranteed  a  very  extensive 
barrier,  while  the  States-General  guaranteed  the  Hanoverian 
succession,  and  undertook  '  to  fm-nish  by  sea  or  land  the  suc- 
cour and  assistance'  necessary  to  maintain  it.  This  treaty, 
having  been  condemned  by  Parliament,  was  abrogated,  but  a 
new  treaty,  with  the  same  general  objects,  was  signed  in  January 
1712-13.  It  was  much  less  favourable  than  its  predecessor  to 
the  Dutch,  but  it  still  retained  the  guai'antee  of  the  Hanoverian 
succession,  and  even  made  it  more  precise.  England  en- 
gaged to  support  Holland,  if  her  barrier  was  assailed,  with 
a  fleet  of  twenty  men-of-war,  and  an  army  of  10,000  men. 
Holland  engaged  to  furnish  the  same  number  of  vessels  and  an 
army  of  6,000  men,  at  the  request  either  of  the  Queen  or  of  the 
Protestant  heir,  to  defend  the  Protestant  succession  whenever 
it  was  in  danger.  This  treaty  was  negotiated  by  the  Tory 
Grovemment,  and  its  great  value  to  the  House  of  Hanover  was 
at  a  later  period  abundantly  shown.  No  measure  was  more 
obnoxious  to  the  Jacobites.  They  were  accustomed  to  ask  ^ith 
some  plausibility  whether  the  supporters  of  the  House  of  Han- 
over were  in  reality  the  friends  of  English  liberty  which  they 
pretended.  They  were  about  to  place  the  sceptre  of  England  in 
the  hands  of  a  German  prince,  who  was  wholly  ignorant  of  the 
English  constitution,  and  accustomed  to  despotic  rule  in  his 
own  country.  He  already  disposed  of  a  German  army  alto- 
gether beyond  the  control  of  the  English  Parliament.  He 
would  find  in  England  many  thousands  of  refugees  driven  from 
a  despotic  country,  who  would  support  his  dynasty  at  any 
sacrifice  as  representing  the  cause  of  Protestantism  in  Europe, 
but  who  were  likely  to  care  very  little  for  the  Britisli  constitu- 
tion ;  and  if,  by  exceeding  his  powers,  he  arrayed  his  subjects 
against  him,  he  could  summon  over  6,000  Dutch  troops  to  his 
support.  If  the  German  prince  happened  to  be  an  able,  am- 
bitious, and  arbitrary  man,  he  would  thus  be  furnished  with 


REORGANISATION   OF  THE   ARMY. 


167 


means  of  attacking  the  liberties  of  England  such  as  Charles  I. 
had  never  possessed.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  as  the  Jacobite  wing  rose  with  BoKng- 
broke  to  the  ascendant,  the  reorganisation  of  the  army  rapidly 
advanced.  At  the  time  when  Marlborough  was  removed  from 
command,  a  project  seems  to  have  been  much  discussed  in 
political  circles  of  making  the  Elector  of  Hanover  commander 
in  Flanders ;  ^  but  such  a  measure,  if  it  was  ever  proposed,  was 
speedily  put  aside,  and  it  was  doubtless  expected  that  Ormoud 
would  in  time  make  the  army  what  he  desired.  But  Bolingbroke 
had  no  wish  to  let  the  Jacobite  movement  pass  out  of  his  control ; 
and  it  is  remarkable  that,  even  in  the  latter  days  of  June  1714, 
he  wrote  to  the  Lords  Justices  of  Ireland,  urging  them  to  search 
diligently  for  all  persons  who  were  recruiting  for  the  Pretender, 
and  to  prosecute  them  with  the  full  rigour  of  the  law.^ 


'  See  the  powerful  statement  of 
these  dangers  in  the  address  issued 
by  the  Pretender,  Aug.  29,  1714. 

-  This  is  stated  in  a  MS.  letter 
from  J.  Williams  to  Josh.  Dawson, 
Jan.  8, 1711,  in  the  Irish  State  Paper 
Office.  RumourstothesameeflEectseem 
to  have  been  floating  for  some  time. 
As  early  as  1703  this  measure  was 
discussed  (^Corresjfondatiee  de  Leibnitz 
aveo  L'^lectnee  Sojihie,  iii.  61-70). 
and  on  Feb.  14, 1707-8,  one  of  the  in- 
formants of  Dawson  (who  was  Secre- 
tary at  Dublin  Castle)  wrote  from 
London  :  '  There  is  a  story  in  town, 
how  true  I  cannot  tell — you  shall 
hear  it — that  at  the  Council,  when 
Lord  Marlborough  said  he  could  not 
serve  any  longer,  several  of  the  lords 
gave  their  opinion  that  if  my  lord 
laid  down  his  commission  we  had 
none  able  to  command  the  forces, 
nor  none  that  had  such  interest  with 
the  allies  as  his  Grace ;  on  wliich 
Lord  Wliarton  said  there  was  one 
who  he  thought  as  able,  and  every 
way  as  well  qualified  to  head  the 
English  army,  and  one  who  he 
thought  should  be  better  known  to 
the  English,  and  that  he  was  not 
ashamed  to  name  him,  which  was  the 
Elector  of  Hanover.     This,  they  say, 


made  everybody  there  mute.' — B. 
Butler  to  Josh.  Dawson,  Irish  State 
Paper  Office.  In  1707  the  Elector 
actually  obtained  a  command  on  the 
Rhine,  which  he  resigned  in  1710. 

^  '  I  enclose  a  copy  of  a  letter  from 
Captain  Roiise,  Commander  of  Her 
Majesty's  ship  the  "  Saphire,"  wherein 
your  Excellencies  will  find  an  account 
of  several  men  who  have  been  listed 
in  Ireland  and  carried  to  France  for 
the  service  of  the  Pretender,  and  that 
one  Fitz-Simonds,  a  merchant  of  Dub- 
lin, is  mentioned  to  be  chiefly  con- 
cerned in  raising  these  recruits.  I 
am,  therefore,  to  acquaint  your  Excel- 
lencies it  is  Her  Majesty's  pleasure 
that  you  enquire  into  the  conduct  of 
this  merchant,  that  you  use  your  ut- 
most diligence  to  gain  a  true  know- 
ledge of  this  fact,  and  to  discover  all 
practices  of  the  like  nature,  and  that 
by  a  rigorous  prosecution  of  those  who 
have  been  already  found  to  be  guilty 
of  them  your  Excellencies  should  as 
much  as  possible  deter  others  from 
attempting  the  same.'  (June  15,1714.) 
On  the  26th  he  again  writes,  urging 
the  prosecution  of  Fitz-Simonds  '  if  he 
appear  guilty  of  conveying  men  out  of 
Her  Majesty's  dominions  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Pretender  ; '  and  aaiother 


168  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

It  was  difficult  for  the  most  sagacious  man  to  predict  the 
issue.     Berwick   strongly  urged  upon  the  Jacobites  that  they 
should  induce  the  Queen  to  take  the  bold  step  of  inviting  the 
Pretender  over  during  her  lifetime,  and  presenting  him  to  the 
Parliament  as  her  successor,  on  the  condition  that  he  bound 
himself  to  defend  the  liberties  of  the  Church  ;i  and  Lord  Towns- 
hend  wrote  to  Hanover  that  the  Whig  party  entertained  strong 
tears  that  some  such  course  might  be  adopted.^     The  Jacobite 
Lord  Hamilton  was  reported  to  have  said  that  '  he  who  would  be 
Hrot  in  London  after  the  Queen's  death  would  be  crowned.     If 
it  is  the  Pretender  he  will  have  the  crown,  undoubtedly,  and  if 
it  is  the  Elector  of  Hanover,  he  will  have  it.'  ^     Schutz  wrote  in 
March  to  the  same  effect :  '  Of  ten  who  are  for  us,  nine  will 
accommodate  themselves  to  the  times,  and  embrace  the  in- 
terests of  him  who  will  be  the  first  on  the  spot,  and  who  will 
undoubtedly  have  the  best  game  and  all  the  hopes  of  success, 
rather  than  expose  themselves  by  their  opposition  to  a  civil 
war,  which  appears  to  them  a  real  and  an  immediate  evil; 
whereas  they  flatter   themselves  that  the  government   of  the 
Pretender,  whom  they  look  upon  as  a  weak  prince,  will  not  be 
such  a  great  evil  as  civil  war.'  *     The  Whig  leaders  were  not 
inactive.      While  the  Grovernment  w^ere   placing   Jacobites  in 
the  most   important  military  posts,  Stanhope  was  concerting 
measures  with  the  French  refugee  officers,  who  were  naturally 
violently  opposed    to  the  Pretender ;    Marlborough,    who  was 
still  on  the  Continent,  was  arranging  with  the  Butch  to  send 
over  a  fleet  and  an  army,  and  he  undertook  to  employ  his  in- 
fluence with  the  troops  who  were  stationed  at  Dunkirk,  and,  if 
necessary,  to  invade  England  at  their  head.     Another  measure 
was  taken  which  threw  the  Government  into  great  perplexity. 
The  Queen  was  inflexibly  opposed  to  the  residence  of  any  mem- 
letter  was  written  on  the  same  subject      May  28,  1714). 

after  the  death  of  the  Queen  (Aug.  7,  '  Memoires  de    BerwicJi,  ii.  1 2d- 

1714).  MSS.  Irish  State  Paper  Office.       130. 

Shrewsbury    had    issued     a     strong  -  Macpherson,  ii.  596-597. 

proclamation      against     enlistments  '  Ibid.,  ii.  557. 

for  the    Pretender   {D-uUin  Gazette,  *  Ibid.,  ii.  572-573. 


CH.  I.  PROSPECTS   OF   THE   SUCCESSION.  169 

ber  of  the  Hanoverian  family  in  England ;  but  the  Electoral 
Prince,  the  son  of  the  Elector,  had  been  made  Duke  of 
Cambridge,  and  as  such  had  a  riglit  to  sit  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  At  the  urgent  request  of  the  Whig  leaders,  Schutz, 
without  informing  either  the  Queen  or  the  ministers,  applied 
to  the  Chancellor  Harcourt  for  a  writ  enabling  the  prince  to 
take  his  seat.  The  chancellor,  who  was  deeply  mixed  in 
Jacobite  intrigues,  was  extremely  embarrassed,  but  it  was  im- 
possible to  refuse  the  demand.  The  Government  treated  it  as 
a  direct  insult  to  the  sovereign.  The  Queen  herself  was  ex- 
ceedingly incensed.  She  wrote  angry  letters  of  remonstrance 
to  the  Electress  Sophia,  to  the  Elector,  and  to  the  Prince  him- 
self. She  forbade  Schutz  to  appear  at  her  court,  and  insisted 
on  his  recall.  The  Elector,  to  the  rage  and  disappointment  of 
the  Whigs,  refused  to  send  over  his  son.  On  May  28th  the  old 
Electress  Sophia  died  suddenly,  her  death  having,  it  is  said, 
been  hastened  by  her  annoyance  at  the  letters  from  the  Queen  ;  * 
and  the  Elector,  according  to  the  Act  of  Settlement,  became 
the  immediate  heir  to  the  British  throne. 

The  Parliament  was  prorogued  on  July  9,  and  it  left 
England  in  a  condition  of  the  strangest  confusion.  The  Queen 
was  dying,  and  the  fierce  conflicts  among  her  servants  and  in 
her  own  mind  at  once  embittered  and  accelerated  her  end.  A 
Tory  ministry,  commanding  a  large  majority  in  the  House  of 
Commons  and  a  majority  perhaps  still  larger  in  the  country, 
was  in  power  ;  but  both  the  Government  and  those  whom  it 
represented  were  distracted  by  internal  dissensions,  and  were 
wholly  uncertain  in  the  object  of  their  policy.  A  question, 
which  was  one  of  the  most  momentous  in  the  history  of  the 
nation,  was  imminent.  It  was  whether  the  monarchy  of  Eng- 
land should  rest  upon  the  Tory  principle  of  the  Divine  right 
of  kings,  or  on  the  principles  established  by  the  Eevolution. 
The  answer  to  this  question  might  determine  the  fate  of  par- 
liamentaiy  institutions  in  England,  and  would  certainly  deter- 

'  Correspondance  de  Leibnitz  avec      too  a  letter  of  Mr.  Slolyneux  to  Marl- 
rElectrice  Sophie,  iii.  481,  483.    See      borough.  Coxe's  Marlborough,  ch.  csL 


170      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  i. 

mine  for  more  than  a  generation  the  character  of  its  legislation, 
the  position  of  its  parties,  the  habitual  bias  of  its  Government. 
Had  it  been  decided  simply  on  this  issue,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  of  the  result.  All  the  instincts,  all  the  traditions,  all 
the  principles  and  enthusiasms  of  the  Tory  party  inclined  them 
to  the  Stuarts,  and,  as  Bolingbroke  truly  said,  a  Whig  as- 
cendancy in  England  could  in  that  age  only  rest  upon  adven- 
titious and  exceptional  circumstances.  Under  all  normal  con- 
ditions, '  the  true,  real,  genuine,  strength  of  Britain '  lay  with 
the  Tories.  The  persistent  Catholicism  of  the  Pretender,  how- 
ever, had  connected  with  this  great  issue  another,  on  which 
the  populaj  feeling  ran  strongly  in  the  opposite  direction, 
and  the  dread  of  Popery  was  the  great  coimterpoise  to  the  love 
of  legitimacy.  The  Government  had  naturally  an  immense 
power  of  determining  the  result,  but  the  fatal  division  between 
its  chiefs,  and  the  fatal  irresolution  of  the  character  of  Oxford, 
had  during  several  critical  months  all  but  suspended  its  action. 
On  May  1 8,  while  Parliament  was  still  sitting,  Swift  wrote  a 
letter  to  Peterborough  which  clearly  described  the  situation : 
'  I  never  led  a  life  so  thoroughly  uneasy  as  I  io  at  present. 
Our  situation  is  so  bad  that  our  enemies  could  not,  without 
abundance  of  invention  and  ability,  have  placed  us  so  ill  if  we 

had  left  it  entirely  to  their  management The  Queen  is 

pretty  well  at  present,  but  the  least  disorder  she  has  puts  us 
all  in  alarm,  and  when  it  is  over  we  act  as  if  she  were  immortal. 
Neither  is  it  possible  to  persuade  people  to  make  any  prepara- 
tion against  the  evil  day.'  ^ 

The  position  of  Swift  at  this  time  is  well  worthy  of  atten- 
tion, for  his  judgment  was  that  of  a  man  of  great  shrewdness 

'  Swift's  Correspondence.   Boling-  subsisted    at  Coitrt  and    in    Parlia- 

broke's  letters  show  a  despondency  ment.'  —  Bolingbroke's    Letters,   iv. 

quite   as  great.      ^Vliting   to   Pru  r,  561-5G2.     Writing  to    Swift  on   the 

July  19,  he  said,  '  Tl  ese  four  or  five  13th  of  the  same  month,  he  said,  'If 

months  last  past  have  afforded  such  a  my  grooms  did  not  live  a  happier  life 

scene  as  I  hope  never  again  to  be  an  than  I  have  done  this  great  while  I 

actor  in.     All  the   confusion   which  am  sure  they  would  quit  my  service.' 

could  be  created  by  the  disunion  of  —  Swift's      Correspondence,    i.    469. 

friends  and  malice   of   enemies   has  (Ed.  1766.) 


CH.  I.  SWIFT.  171 

as  well  as  great  genius,  and  he  probably  represented  the  feel- 
ings of  many  of  the  more  intelligent  members  of  his  party. 
Though  a  fierce,  imscrupulous,  and  singularly  scurrilous  poli- 
tical writer,  he  was  not,  in  the  general  character  of  his  poli- 
tics, a  violent  man,'  and  the  inconsistency  of  his  political  life 
has  been  very  grossly  exaggerated.  It  was  almost  inevitable 
that  a  young  man,  brought  up  as  Secretary  to  Sir  W.  Temple, 
should  enter  public  life  with  Whig  prepossessions.  It  was 
almost  equally  inevitable  that  a  High  Cluirch  divine  shoiUd, 
in  the  party  conflicts  under  Queen  Anne,  ultimately  gravitate 
to  the  Tories.  Personal  ambition,  no  doubt,  as  lie  himself 
very  frankly  admitted,  contributed  to  his  change,  but  there 
was  nothing  in  it  of  that  complete  and  scandalous  apostasy  of 
which  he  has  often  been  accused.  From  first  to  last  an 
exclusive  Church  feeling  was  his  genuine  passion.  It  appeared 
fully,  though  in  a  very  strange  form,  in  the  '  Tale  of  a  Tub,' 
which  was  published  as  early  as  1704.  It  appeared  still  more 
strongly  in  his  '  Project  for  the  Keformation  of  ]Manners,'  in 
his  '  Sentiments  of  a  Church  of  England  Man,'  in  his  '  Argu- 
ment against  abolishing  Christianity,'  in  his  '  Letter  to  a 
Member  of  Parliament  against  taking  off  the  Test  in  Ireland  ; ' 
all  of  which  were  published  at  the  time  when  he  was  osten- 
sibly a  \Vhig.2  It  appeared  not  less  clearly  many  years  after- 
wards in  his  Irish  tracts,  written  at  a  period  when  it  would 
have  been  eminently  conducive  to  the  objects  he  was  aim- 
ing at  to  have  rallied  all  religions  in  opposition  to  the 
Government.  In  the  later  part  of  the  reign  of  Anne  political 
parties  were  grouped,  much  more  than  in  the  previous  reign, 
by  ecclesiastical  considerations  ;  and,  after  the  impeachment  of 
Sacheverell,  the  Tory  party  had  become,  before  all  things,  the 
party  of  the  Church.     On  the  other  hand,  Swift  nevei  appears 

'  His  genuine    political    opinion  account  of  the  latter.' — Sentiments  of 

was  expressed  by  him  in  one  very  a  Cliurch  of  England  Man. 
happy  and    characteristic   sentence,  *  See  also  a  curious  letter  on  the 

<  Whoever    has    a     true     value    for  Occasional  Conformity  Bill,  to  Esther 

Church  and  State  should  avoid  the  Johnson,  written    as   early  as    1703. 

extremes  of  Whig  for  the  sake  of  the  Swift's  Correspondence,  pp.  1-4. 
former,  and  the  extremes  of  Tory  on 


172  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ca.  i. 

to  have  wavered  in  his  attachment  to  the  Protestant  line  ;  and 
there  is  not  the  smallest  evidence  that  he  had  at  any  period  of 
his  life  the  slightest  communication  with  St.  Grermain's.  His 
position  in  the  party  was  a  very  prominent  one.  He  was,  with- 
out exception,  the  most  effective  political  writer  in  England 
at  a  time  when  political  writing  was  of  transcendent  import- 
ance. His  influence  contributed  very  much  to  that  generous 
and  discriminating  patronage  of  literature  which  was  the  special 
glory  of  the  Tory  ministry  of  Anne.  To  his  pen  we  owe  by  far 
the  most  powerful  and  most  rational  defence  of  the  Peace  of 
Utrecht  that  has  ever  been  composed ;  and  although,  like  the 
other  writers  of  his  party,  he  wrote  much  in  a  strain  of  dis- 
graceful scurrility  against  Marlborough,  it  is  at  least  very 
honourable  to  his  memory  that  he  disapproved  of,  and  protested 
against,  the  conduct  of  the  ministers  in  superseding  that  great 
general  in  the  midst  of  the  war.'  In  the  crisis  which  we  are 
considering,  he  strongly  m-ged  upon  them  to  reconcile  themselves 
with  the  Elector ;  and  he  came  over  specially  from  Ireland  in 
order  to  compose  the  differences  in  the  Cabinet.  Having  failed 
in  his  attempt,  he  retired  to  the  house  of  a  friend  in  Berkshire, 
and  there  wrote  a  remarkable  appeal  to  the  nation,  which 
shows  clearly  his  deep  sense  of  the  dangers  of  the  time. 
Though  he  was  much  more  closely  connected,  both  by  personal 
and  political  sympathy,  with  Oxford  than  with  Bolingbroke, 
he  now  strongly  blamed  the  indecision  and  procrastination  of 
the  former,  and  maintained  that  the  party  was  in  such  extreme 
and  imminent  danger  that  nothing  but  the  most  drastic  reme- 
dies could  save  it.  The  great  majority  of  tlie  nation,  he  main- 
tained, had  two  wishes.  The  first  was,  '  That  the  Church  of 
England  should  be  preserved  entire  in  all  her  rights,  power, 
and  privileges ;  all  doctrines  relating  to  government  dis- 
couraged which  she  condemned ;  all  schisms,  sects,  and  heresies 

'  Journal  to  Stella,  Jan.  7, 1711-12.  think  so  well  of  him  as  you  do,  yet  I 

In  one  of  his  letters  to  Steele,  dated  have  been  the  cause   of  preventing 

May  27,  171.S,  he  says,   'As  to  the  500  hard  things  to  be  said  against 

great  man  (Marlborough)  vrhose  de-  him.' — Scott's  ed.  xvi.  p.  69. 
fence  you  undertake,  though  I  do  not 


CH.  I.  •  SWIFT.  173 

discountenanced.'  The  second  was,  the  maintenance  of  the 
Protestant  succession  in  the  House  of  Brunswick,  *  not  for  any 
partiality  to  that  illustrious  house  further  than  as  it  had  the 
honour  to  mingle  with  the  blood  royal  of  England,  and  is  the 
nearest  branch  of  our  royal  line  reformed  from  Popery.'  He 
proceeded,  in  language  which  showed  some  insincerity  or  some 
blindness,  to  deny  the  existence  of  any  considerable  Jacobitism 
outside  the  Nonjuror  body,  maintaining  that  the  supporters  of 
the  theory  of  passive  obedience  could  have  no  difficulty  in 
supporting  a  line  which  they  foimd  established  by  law,  and 
were  not  at  all  called  upon  by  their  principles  to  enter  into 
any  historical  investigation  of  the  merits  of  the  Eevolutiou. 
But  the  danger  of  the  situation  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  heir 
to  the  throne  had  completely  failed  to  give  any  assurance  to 
the  nation  that  he  would  support  that  Church  party  to  which 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  nation  was  attached ;  that 
he  had,  on  the  contrary,  given  all  his  confidence  to  the  im- 
placable enemies  of  that  party — to  the  Whigs,  Low  Churchmen, 
and  Dissenters.  Swift  maintained  that  the  only  course  that 
could  secure  the  party  was  the  immediate  and  absolute  exclusion 
of  all  such  persons  from  every  description  of  civil  and  military 
office.  The  whole  government  of  the  country,  in  all  its  de- 
partments, must  be  thrown  into  the  hands  of  Tories,  and  it 
would  then  be  impossible  to  displace  them.  This  was  necessary 
because  the  Whigs  had  already  proved  very  dangerous  to  the 
constitution  in  Chiurch  and  State,  because  they  were  highly 
irritated  at  the  loss  of  power,  '  but  principally  because  they 
have  prevailed,  by  misrepresentations  and  other  artifices,  to 
make  the  successor  look  upon  them  as  the  only  persons  he  can 
trust,  upon  which  account  they  cannot  be  too  soon  or  too  much 
disabled  ;  neither  will  England  ever  be  safe  from  the  attempts 
of  this  wicked  confederacy  until  their  strength  and  interests 
shall  be  so  far  reduced  that  for  the  future  it  shall  not  be  in 
the  power  of  the  Crown,  although  in  conjunction  with  any  rich 
and  factious  body  of  men,  to  choose  an  ill  majority  in  the 
House   of  Commons.'     He    at  the  same  time  urged  that  the 


174  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  cii.  i. 

Elector  should  be  peremptorily  called  upon  by  the  Queen  to 
declare  his  approbation  of  the  policy  of  the  Queen's  ministers, 
and  to  disavow  all  connection  with  the  Whigs. ^ 

It  must  be  owned  that  this  pamphlet  showed  very  little  of 
that   extreme   subservience  to    royal   authority  for  which  the 
Tory  party  had  been  so  often  reproached.     The  policy  indi- 
cated   if  openly  avowed,  might  have  led  to  a  civil  war,  and 
Bolingbroke  probably  showed  much  wisdom  in  inducing  Swift 
to  withhold  the  publication.     Though  caring  only  for  the  as- 
cendancy of  the  Tory  party,  Bolingbroke   had    by  this   time 
gone  so  far  in  the  direction  of  Jacobitism  that  it  was  difficult 
to  recede,  and  the  policy  of  the  Government  tended  more  and 
more  to  a  restoration  of  the  Stuarts.     Yet  Oxford  opposed  to 
the  last  any  step  which  amounted  to  an  irrevocable  decision, 
and  at  the  time  when  Parliament  was  prorogued  nothing  had 
been  arranged.     Many  military   and  civil   appointments  had, 
indeed,  been  made  in  the  interest  of  the  Pretender,  but  nothing 
had  been  done  to  induce  the  Queen  to  invite  him  over,  or  to 
determine  formally  the  conditions  on  which  he  might  mount  the 
throne,  or  the  plan  of  operations  after  the  death  of  the  Queen. 
The  leaders  in  France  became  more  and  more  convinced  of  the 
insincerity  of  Oxford.    Berwick  and  Torcy  wrote  to  him  repre- 
senting that  the  Queen's  death  might  happen  very  shortly,  and 
asking  for  a  distinct  account  of  his  measures  to  secure  in  that 
case  the  interests  of  the  legitimate  heir,  as  well  as  of  the  steps 
the  Prince  himself  should  take ;  but  they  could  obtain  no  other 
answer  than  that,  if  the  Queen  now  died,  the  affairs  both  of  the 
Stuarts  and  of  the  Grovernment  were  ruined  without  resource.^ 
France  was  so  exhausted  after  the  late  struggle  that  she  could 
not  venture,  at  the  risk  of  another  war,  to  support  the  Pre- 
tender by  force  of  arms ;  and  it  was  also  an  unfortunate  circum- 
stance for  his  cause  that  about  this  time  Berwick,  who  was  one 
of  its  chief  supports,  received  a  command  in  Catalonia. 

The  object  of  the  Jacobites  under  these  circumstances  waa 

'  Free  Thm^jUs  upon  the  Present  ^  Mem.  de  Bern-id,  ii.  131. 

State  of  Affairs  (1714). 


CH.  I.  DISGRACE   OF  OXFORD.  175 

to  displace  Oxford,  and  they  liad  no  great  difficulty  in  accom- 
plishing it.     The  influence  which  his  good  private  character 
and  his  moderate  and  compromising  temperament  once  gave 
him  in  the  country  had  been  rapidly  waning.     His  party  were 
disgusted  with    his   habitual   indecision.     The   Queen  had   to 
complain    of  many  instances   of  gross   and  scandalous   disre- 
spect '  ;  but  the  influence  which  at   last   turned  the  scale  was 
that  of  Lady  Masham.     She  was  now  wholly  in  the  interests  of 
the  Jacobites.     She  had  quarrelled  violently  witli  Oxford  about 
a  pension,  and,  at  the  request  of  the  Jacobite  leaders,  she  used 
her  great  influence  with  the  Queen  to  procure  his  dismissal. 
Seldom  has  it  been  given  to  a  woman  wliolly  undistinguished 
by  birtli,  character,  beauty,  or  intellect  to  affect  so  powerfully 
the  march  of  affairs.     Her  influence,  though  by  no  means  the 
sole,  was  imdoubtedly  a  leading,  cause  of  the  change  of  ministry 
in  1710,  which  saved  France   from  almost  complete  ruin,  and 
determined  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.     Her  influence  in  1714  all 
but  altered  the  order  of  succession  in  England,  and  with  it  the 
whole  course  of  English  politics.     On  July  27,  after  a  long  and 
violent  altercation  in  the  Cabinet,  Oxford  was  dismissed,  the 
Queen  resumed  the  white   staff  of  Treasurer,  and  Bolingbroke 
became  Prime  Minister. 

The  cause  of  the  Protestant  succession  had  now  touched  its 
nadir.  Bolingbroke,  it  is  true,  on  this  memorable  occasion 
invited  the  Whig  leaders  to  a  conference  at  his  house,^  but 
they  would  give  him  no  support  unless  he  attested  his  sin- 
cerity by  insisting  on  the  expulsion  of  the  Pretender  from 
Lorraine ;  and  on  that  very  day  he  assured  Gaultier  that  his 
sentiments  towards  the  Stuart  prince  were  unchanged,^  and  he 
proceeded  to  sketch  the  outlines  of  a  ministry  almost  exclu- 
sively .Jacobite.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  such  a 
ministry,  supported  by  the  Queen,  presided  over  by  a  statesman 

•  Erasmus  Lewis  to  Swift,  July  27,  Macpherson,  ii.  532,  53.3. 

1714. —Swift's  Correspondence.  '  Sianhoiie's  Hid.  of  England, '\.%^. 

^  Coxe's  Wiilpole,  i.  i'J.  This  fact  See,  too,  the  account  of  Bolin^xbroke's 
is,  I  think,  very  significant  of  the  true  conversations  witli  his  Scotch  sup- 
motives    of    Bolingbroke.     See    too  iiorters  in  the  I^iekhart  Papers. 


176  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  i. 

eminently  skilful,  daring,  and  unscrupulous,  and  disposing  of 
all  the  civil  and  military  administration  of  the  country,  could, 
in  the  existing  condition  of  England,  have  effected  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Stuarts.  Pledges  would  have  been  exacted  for  the 
security  of  the  Church,  but  such  pledges  would  readily  have 
been  granted.  Time  was  now  of  vital  importance,  and  as  Par- 
liament had  been  recently  prorogued,  the  ministers  were  likely, 
during  several  months,  to  be  practically  unfettered.  Boling- 
broke,  a  few  days  later,  assured  Iberville  that  his  measures 
had  been  so  well  taken  that  in  six  weeks  matters  would  have 
been  placed  in  such  a  condition  that  he  would  have  had  nothing 
to  fear.'  He  proposed  to  retain  in  the  new  Grovernment  his 
old  position  of  Secretary  of  State  with  the  control  of  all  foreign 
affairs.  Bromley  and  Lord  Mar  were  to  be  the  other  two  secre- 
taries. Atterbury,  whose  fierce  and  brilliant  genius  was  much 
more  fitted  for  the  arena  of  politics  than  for  the  episcopacy, 
and  who  was  the  idol  of  the  lower  clergy,  was  to  have  the 
Privy  Seal.  Harcourt  was  to  continue  Chancellor.  The  Dukes 
of  Ormond  and  Buckingham,  who  were  conspicuous  among 
the  adherents  of  the  Pretender,  were  to  be  respectively  Com- 
mander-in-Chief and  Lord  President.  The  Treasury,  which 
had  lately  carried  with  it  the  chief  power  in  the  Grovernment, 
was  to  be  placed  in  commission.  Windham,  the  brother-in- 
law  and  devoted  friend  of  Bolingbroke,  was  to  be  placed  at  its 
head,  but  the  names  of  the  other  commissioners  were  unde- 
cided after  a  long  and  angry  discussion,  which  lasted  far  into 
the  night.  All  these  statesmen  were  Jacobites.  One,  however, 
remained,  whose  position  was  still  ambiguous.  The  Duke  of 
Shrewsbury  occupied  a  position  which  made  it  difficult  for  him 
to  be  subordinate  to  any  other  minister,  though  at  the  same 
time  a  great  disinclination  for  the  rough  work  of  public  life, 

'  After  the  death  of  the  Queen,  II  m'a  assure  que  les  mesures  etoient 

Iberville  wrote  to  the  French  King  :  si  bien  prises  qu'en  six  semaines  de 

'  My  Lord  Bolingbroke  est  penetre  de  temps  on  auroit  mis  les  choses  en  tel 

douleur  de  la  perte  de  la  Reyne,  au  est  at    qu'il    n'y  auroit    eu    rien    4 

point  de  sa  fortune  particuli^re  et  de  craindre     de    ce    qui     vient     d'ar- 

la  consommation  de  toutes  les  affaires  river.' — 13  Aout,  1714   (N.S.),  MSS. 

qui  ont  este  f aites  depuis  quatre  ans.  Paris  Foreign  OtHce. 


CH.  I.  ILLNESS  OF  THE  QUEEN.  177 

and  some  weakness  of  character,  incapacitated  him  for  the 
foremost  place  in  active  politics.  On  the  death  of  the  Duke 
of  Hamilton  lie  had  Ijeen  sent  to  Paris  as  ambassador  to  negotiate 
the  peace.  He  was  afterwards  appointed  Lord-Lieutenant  of 
Ireland,  and  he  held  that  position  at  the  time  of  the  dismissal 
of  Oxford.  He  had  there  professed  his  attachment  to  the  Pro- 
testant succession,  but  not  more  than  Oxford  and  Bolingbroke 
in  England,  and  he  appears  to  have  persuaded  the  latter  that  he 
was  devoted  to  his  fortunes.  The  Jacobite  cause,  under  the 
influence  of  the  Irish  Chancellor,  seemed  ascendant  in  Ireland, 
with  the  important  exception  of  the  House  of  Commons,  which 
continued  violently  Whig  ;  and  Shrewsbury,  having  vainly  at- 
tempted to  secure  a  Tory  majority  by  an  election,  consented, 
at  the  desire  of  the  ministers,  to  prorogue  the  Parliament 
abruptly,  thus  apparently  destroying  the  best  security  of  the 
Protestant  succession  in  Ireland.  He  at  the  same  time  care- 
fully concealed  his  own  sentiments,  came  over  to  England  to 
watch  the  course  of  events,  and  received  constant  private  intel- 
ligence of  the  condition  of  the  Queen's  health  from  her  phy- 
sician, Dr.  Shadwell. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  when  an  event  occurred  in 
which  the  partisans  of  the  Protestant  succession  long  loved  to 
trace  the  special  intervention  of  a  gracious  Providence.  On  the 
very  day  following  the  dismissal  of  Oxford — when  everything 
was  still  unsettled — when  the  destinies  of  the  kingdom  trembled 
in  the  balance — the  Queen  was  struck  do\vn  by  a  mortal  illness. 
The  excitement  of  the  protracted  struggle  had  been  too  much 
for  her  failing  strength.  The  council  sat  in  her  presence  till 
two  in  the  morning  of  the  28th,  and  had  been  disturbed  by  the 
most  furious  altercations.  She  retired  at  last,  weary,  anxious, 
and  agitated,  saying  to  those  about  her  that  she  would  never 
outlive  the  scene,  and  she  sank  almost  immediately  into  a 
lethargic  illness.  Next  day  the  imposthume  in  her  leg  suddenly 
ceased.  The  gout  flew  to  her  brain,  and  she  was  manifestly 
dying. 

The  crisis  had  now  come,  and  those  who  had  been  so  lately 

VOL.  I.  13 


178 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY. 


CH.  I. 


flushed  with  the  prospect  of  assured  power  were  wholly 
unprepared.  They  assembled  in  Privy  Council  at  Kensington, 
wliere  a  strange  scene  is  said  to  have  occurred.  Argyle  and 
Somerset,  though  they  had  contributed  largely  by  their  defec- 
tion to  the  downfall  of  the  Whig  ministry  of  Godolphin,  were 
now  again  in  opposition  to  the  Tories,  and  had  recently  been 
dismissed  from  their  posts.  Availing  themselves  of  their 
rank  of  Privy  Councillors,  they  appeared  unsummoned  in  the 
council  room,  pleading  the  greatness  of  the  emergency.  Shrews- 
bury, who  had  probably  concocted  the  scene,  rose  and  warmly 
thanked  them  for  their  offer  of  assistance;  and  these  three  men 
appear  to  have  guided  the  course  of  events.  At  their  request  the 
physicians  were  examined,  and  they  deposed  that  the  Queen  was 
in  imminent  danger.  The  Council  resolved  that  the  great  office 
of  Treasurer  should  be  at  once  filled,  and  that  it  should  be  filled 
by  Shrewsbury.'    There  was  no  opposition.    Bolingbroke  is  said 


'  This  is  the  account  given  by 
Boyer,  Tindal,  and  Oldmixon,  and 
reproduced  by  most  later  historians. 
Mr.  Wyon,  however,  has  justly  ob- 
served, in  his  valuable  Histoi-y  of 
Queen  Anne  (Yo\.'\\.,-[iY>-  524-526),  that 
it  is  not  quite  consistent  with  the 
letters  written  by  Ford  to  Swift 
(July  31  and  Aug.  5).  Ford,  who  was 
a  Government  official,  and  wrote 
from  the  spot,  says  : '  The  Whigs  were 
not  in  the  Council  when  he  (Shrews- 
bury) was  recommended.  Lord 
Bolingbroke  proposed  it  there  as  well 
as  to  the  Queen.'  Boyer  says  that 
after  Argyle  and  Somerset  had  ap- 
peared in  the  Coimcil  '  one  of  the 
Council '  represented  how  necessary 
it  was  that  the  office  of  Treasurer 
should  be  filled,  and  that  the  board 
then  unanimously  approved  of  Shrews- 
bury.— Boyer's  Queen  Anne,  p.  714. 
As  Argyle  and  Somerset  were  Whigs, 
though  very  inconsistent  ones,  Mr. 
Wyon  thinks  the  appointment  was 
made  before  their  arrival.  It  ap- 
pears, however,  that  after  the  episode 
relating  to  Shrewsbury  the  Council 
agreed,  on  the  motion  of  Argyle  and 
Somerset,  to  summon  all  Privy  Coun- 


cillors in  or  near  London  without 
distinction  of  party,  and  that  it  was 
then  only  that  Somers  and  other  Whig 
statesmen  appeared  on  the  scene 
(Boyer,  714-715).  This  is,  probably, 
all  that  was  meant  by  Ford  when  he 
describes  the  appointment  of  Shrews- 
bury as  having  taken  place  before  the 
arrival  of  the  Whigs.  Lord  Stanhope, 
however,  is  mistaken  in  saying  that 
the  appointment  was  suggested  by  the 
two  intruding  dukes.  Iberville,  who 
had  good  means  of  information,  cor- 
roborates the  assertion  that  Argyle 
and  Somerset  appeared  unsummoned 
at  the  Council.  With  reference  to 
the  appointment  of  Shrewsbury  he 
only  says,  '  Aussitot  que  la  Reine 
avoit  repris  connoissance  le  conseil 
avoit  propose  de  faire  M.  le  Due 
de  Shrewsbury  Grand  Tresorier,  ce 
qu'elle  fit  de  bon  coeur.  H  ne  faut 
pour  cela  que  dormer  la  baguette,  au 
lieu  qu'il  falloit  une  commission  en 
chancellerie  pour  une  nomination  de 
commissionaires  dont  on  n'etoit  pas 
encore  convenu,  et  qu'il  auroit 
fallu  bien  du  temps  pour  cela.' — Iber- 
ville to  Torcy,  11  Aout,  1714  (N.S._). 
Two  days  later  he  writes :  *  On  dit 


CH.  I.  DEATH   OF   THE  QUEEN.  179 

himself  to  have  made  the  proposition,  and  both  he  and  his 
colleagues  appeared  stupified  by  the  sudden  change.  They  knew 
that  the  coming  King  regarded  them  with  complete  hostility, 
but  nothing  had  been  organised  for  a  restoration  of  the  Stuarts, 
and  there  was  no  time  or  opportunity  for  making  conditions. 
A  deputation,  headed  by  Bolingbroke,  was  sent  to  the  dying 
Queen,  who  feebly  assented  to  whatever  was  asked.  Shrewsburv, 
who  was  already  Chamberlain  and  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
became  Lord  Treasurer,  and  assumed  the  authority  of  Prime 
Minister.  Summons  were  at  once  sent  to  all  Privy  Councillors, 
irrespective  of  party,  to  attend ;  and  Somers  and  several  others 
of  the  Whig  leaders  were  speedily  at  their  post.  They  had 
the  great  advantage  of  knowing  clearly  the  policy  they  should 
pursue,  and  their  measures  were  taken  with  admirable  promp- 
titude and  energy.  The  guards  of  the  Tower  were  at  once 
doubled.  Four  regiments  were  ordered  to  march  from  the 
country  to  London,  and  all  seamen  to  repair  to  their  vessels. 
An  embargo  was  laid  on  all  shipping.  The  fleet  was  equipped, 
and  speedy  measures  were  taken  to  protect  the  seaports,  and  to 
secure  tranquillity  in  Scotland  and  Ireland.  At  the  same  time 
despatches  were  sent  to  the  Netherlands  ordering  seven  of  the 
ten  British  battalions  to  embark  without  dela^;  to  Lord  Strafford, 
the  ambassador  at  the  Hague,  desiring  the  States-General 
to  fulfil  their  guarantee  of  the  Protestant  succession  in  Eng- 
land ;  to  the  Elector,  urging  him  to  hasten  to  Holland,  where 
on  the  death  of  the  Queen  he  would  be  met  by  a  British 
squadron,  and  escorted  to  his  new  kingdom.  Marlborough,  who 
had  long  oscillated  between  the  parties,  was  now  in  the  Hano- 
verian interest,  and  was  hastening  over  to  employ  his  influence, 
if  necessary,  with  the  army. 

The  Queen  remained  in  a  condition  of  stupor,  broken  by  a 
few  faint  intervals  of  consciousness,  till  the  morning  of  the 
1st,  when  she  died.  On  the  30th  July  Stanhope  had  written  to 
the  Emperor  Charles  VI.  informing  him  of  her  sudden  illness, 

que  c'est  a  la  pri^re  de  my  lord  s'est  determine  a  accepter  la  charge.' 
Bolingbroke  que  my  lord  Shrewsbury      — MSS.  Pans  Foreign  Office, 


180  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

and  he  predicted  that  if  her  death  was  postponed  only 
for  a  few  weeks  the  Protestant  succession  would  be  in  grave 
danger.^  The  feelings  of  Bolingbroke  may  be  clearly  seen  in 
his  own  words :  '  The  Earl  of  Oxford  was  removed  on  Tuesday, 
the  Queen  died  on  Sunday!  What  a  world  is  this,  and  how 
does  fortune  banter  us  ! '  ^ 

The  new  King  was  at  once  proclaimed,  and  it  is  a  striking 
proof  of  the  danger  of  the  crisis  that  the  funds,  which  had  fallen 
on  a  false  rumour  of  the  Queen's  recovery,  rose  at  once  when  she 
died.'  Atterbury  is  said  to  have  urged  Bolingbroke  to  proclaim 
James  III.  at  Charing  Cross,  and  to  have  offered  to  head  the 
procession  in  his  lawn  sleeves,  but  the  counsel  was  mere  madness, 
and  Bolingbroke  saw  clearly  that  any  attempt  to  overthrow  the 
Act  of  Settlement  would  be  now  worse  than  useless.  He  had 
assented  to  all  measures  for  the  security  of  the  succession  which 
had  been  taken  in  the  last  Council  of  Anne,  and  he  cordially 
approved  of  the  conduct  of  Iberville,  who,  the  morning  after  the 
Queen's  death,  paid  his  official  compliments  to  the  Hanoverian 
minister.*     The  more  violent  spirits  among  the  Jacobites  now 

'  '  Get  accident  subit  et  imprevu  death  ....  There   is  a   superabun- 

est  un  coup  de  foudre  pour  le  parti  dancy  of  joy  on  this  occasion.     The 

Jacobite  qui  n'a  point  pws  de  mesures  stocks  rise  isrodigiously.     The  mer- 

pour  faire  reussir  leur  projet  aussitost  chants   expect   vast    commerce,    the 

qu'il  seroit  necessaire  et  j  'ose  assurer  soldiers  great  employment,  and  those 

a  votre  M.  I.  et  C.  que  si  les  medecins  who  have  been  out  all  the  employ- 

ont    devine   ^uste    Mgr.    L'Electeur  ments  of  those  who  are  in.'     '  Thank 

d'Hanovre  seraproclame  Eoy  et  pren-  God,  everything  is  very  quiet,  but  the 

dra     possession    du    Royaume    aussi  joy  of  the  City  of  London   is  very 

paisiblement  que  I'a  fait  aucim  de  ses  peculiar,  for  the  stocks  sank  as  the 

predecesseurs.     II  est  vray  que  si  la  news  came  from  Kensington  that  her 

maladie  trainoit  en  longueur,  quand  ce  Majesty  was  like  to  recover,  and  rose 

ne  seroit  que  quelques  semaines  nous  as   her   case,  grew  more   desperate.' 

pourrions    etre    fort    embarrasses.' —  See,  too,    Ford  to    Swift    (July  31, 

Correspondance  de  Leibnitz,  iii.  504-  171i),  Swift's  Corregpondence.     Iber- 

505.  ville  wrote  to  the  French  King  :  'La 

2  Bolingbroke  to  Swift  Aug.  3rd,  tranquillite    qu'on    voit     icy     sans 

1714.— Swift's  Correspondence.  aucune     apparence     qu'il    y   ait    le 

*  Two  interesting  MS.  letters  in  moindre    mouvement   en  faveur    du 

the  Irish  State  Paper  OtEce,  -written  by  Chevalier,  a  fait  hausser  de  sept  a  huit 

Edward  Southwell  to  Josh.  Dawson,  pour  cent  les  actions  sur  les  fonds 

from  London  immediately  after  the  publics.' — Aug.  13  (N.S.). 

Queen's  death,  give  a  curious  picture  ^  Iberville  to  the  French  King,Aug. 

of  the  state  of  feeling  :  '  I  attended  13  (N.S.).   Iberville  adds  : '  II  [Boling- 

my  royal  mistress  to  the  hour  of  her  broke]  croit  que  V.  M.  doit  eviter  avec 


CH.  I.  ACCESSION   OF  GEORGE  I.  181 

looked  eagerly  for  a  French  invasion,  but  the  calmer  members  of 
the  party  perceived  that  such  an  invasion  was  impossible,  that 
a  Jacobite  expedition  unsupported  by  French  arms  would  be 
entirely  hopeless,  and  that  the  true  policy  of  the  Tory  party 
was  to  abstain  from  every  demonstration  that  savoured  of 
Jacobitism.  The  calm  of  the  city  at  this  critical  moment  was 
very  remarkable.  Oxford  was,  it  is  true,  insulted  in  the  streets, 
but  there  was  no  serious  disorder,  and  the  guard  which,  as  a 
measure  of  precaution,  had  been  placed  before  the  French 
Embassy  was  speedily  svithdrawn.  The  Regency  Act  of  1705 
came  at  once  into  operation.  The  Hanoverian  minister 
produced  the  sealed  list  of  the  names  of  those  to  whom  the 
Elector  entrusted  the  government  before  his  arrival,  and  it  was 
found  to  consist  of  eighteen  names  taken  from  the  leaders  of  the 
Whig  party,  omitting,  however,  Somers,  who  was  a  confirmed 
invalid,  and  ^Marlborough,  who  was  still  profoundly  distrusted 
by  the  Hanoverian  party.  Parliament,  in  accordance  with  the 
provisions  of  the  Bill,  was  at  once  summoned,  and  it  was  soon 
evident  that  there  was  nothing  to  fear.  The  moment  for  a 
restoration  was  past,  and  the  one  object  of  the  Tory  party  was 
now  to  proclaim  their  adhesion  to  the  dynasty,  and  if  possible 
to  avoid    proscription.^      Dutiful  addresses   were  unanimously 

grand  soin  la  moindre  demonstration  ils  repondent   que   le    Chevalier   est 

en  faveurdu  Chevalier  qui  pustfournir  perdu  pour  jamais  et  que  nous  n'en 

unpretexte  auxWhigsderecommencer  serons  pas  plus  exempts  de  la  guerre.' 

laguerre.  Tous  les  gens  sensez  sans  ex-  MSS.  Paris  Foreign  OflBce. 
cepter  les  Jacobites  declarez,  en  con-  '  Bolingbroke  seems  to  have  hoped 

viennent,  meme  pour  Tintcretdu  Che-  for  a  time  to  attract  the  new  King  to 

valier   dont   ils    craignent    une    fin  his  party.     He  -wrote  to  Swift  (Aug. 

malheureuse,  s'il  se  hazardoit  leg^re-  3),  '  The  Tories  seem  to  resolve  not 

ment  sur  la  parole  de  certaines  gens  to   be   crushed,   and   that  is  enough 

qu'ilstraitent  d'aventuriers,  zMes  ala  to  prevent  them  from  being  so.  .  .  . 

verite,mais  sans  teste.'     In  one  of  his  The  Whigs  are  a  pack  of  Jacobites; 

letters  to  Torcy  on  the  11th  he  said,  that  shall  be  the  cry  in  a  month  if 

'  La  teste  tourne  a  la  plupart  des  Jaco-  you  please.' — Swift's  Correspondence. 
bites,  surtout  des   Ecossais.      lis   se  On  the  7th  Erasmus  Lewis  wrote 

figurentqueleRoivafournirauCheva-  to  Swift,  MVe  are  gaping  and  star- 

lier  ce  qu'il  fa ut  pour  passer  en  Ecosse  ing  to  see  who  is  to  rule  us.     The 

etysoutenir  laguerre  etquand  on  leur  Whigs  think  they  shall  engross  all. 

dit  que  sa  Majesty  ne  le  pourroit  sans  We  think  we  shall  have  our  share.' — 

contrevenir  aux  traites  de  paix  et  s'at-  Ihxd. 
tirer  sur  les  bras  une  nouvelle  guerre 


182  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  i. 

voted.  The  Tories  tried  to  win  the  favour  of  the  new  King  hy 
proposing  that  the  Civil  List  which  had  been  700,000^.  under 
Anne,  should  be  raised  to  a  million,  but  the  danger  of  so  ex- 
travagant an  augmentation  was  felt  and  the  former  sum  was 
voted.  The  arrears  due  to  the  Hanoverian  troops  were 
paid.  A  reward  of  100,000/.  was  ojBFered  for  the  apprehension 
of  the  Pretender  in  case  he  attempted  to  land.  That  prince, 
on  the  news  of  the  death  of  Anne,  had  hastened  to  Paris,  but 
by  this  time  a  powerful  fleet  protected  the  English  coast.  The 
Jacobite  party  was  unorganised  or  paralysed  ;  the  large  class 
who  dreaded  beyond  all  things  civil  war,  now  supported  the 
Government ;  the  French  were  not  prepared  to  draw  the  sword, 
and  at  the  request  of  Torcy  the  Stuart  Prince  returned  to 
Lorraine.  He  issued  a  proclamation  deploring  '  the  death  of 
the  Princess  our  sister,  of  whose  good  intentions  towards  us  we 
could  not  for  some  time  past  well  doubt,  and  this  was  the 
reason  we  then  sate  still,  expecting  the  good  efiects  thereof, 
which  were  unfortunately  prevented  by  her  deplorable  death.' 

It  was  in  this  manner  that,  contrary  to  all  reasonable 
expectations,  this  great  change  was  effected  without  bloodshed, 
and  almost  without  difficulty.  The  King,  either  from  policy  or 
indifference,  did  not  appear  in  England  till  September  18,  when 
he  was  received  with  no  opposition,  and  with  some  applause. 
Those  who  hoped  that  he  might  share  his  favours  between  both 
parties  were  speedily  undeceived.  Even  before  his  landing, 
Bolingbroke  was  deprived  of  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State, 
which  he  still  held,  in  a  manner  of  positive  insult.  Lord 
Townshend,  the  author  of  the  barrier  treaty,  was  appointed  to 
the  place,  and  he  soon  assumed  the  rank  of  Prime  Minister. 
Ormond  was  not  permitted  to  come  into  the  King's  presence. 
Oxford  was  made  to  undergo  the  most  marked  slights,  and 
a  Whig  ministry  was  speedily  formed.  Townshend,  Stanhope, 
Sunderland,  Cowper,  JMarlborough,  Nottingham,  and  Argyle 
filled  the  chief  places,  while  Walpole,  who  was  rising  rapidly  to 
the  foremost  rank  among  the  young  Whigs,  became  Paymaster- 
General,  and  Pulteney,  who  afterwards  became  his  greatest  rival, 


CH.  I.  TRIUMPH   OF   THE  WHIGS.  183 

was  Secretary  at  war.  Shrewsbury,  whose  services  in  the  crisis 
had  been  so  transcendent,  but  who  had  been  deeply  implicated 
in  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  retained  the  office  of  Lord  Chamberlain, 
but  resigned  those  of  Treasurer  and  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
and  it  was  observed  that  though  Marlborough  became  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, his  power  was  always  carefully  restricted,  and 
that  the  office  of  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  which  was  regarded 
as  a  dignified  banishment,  was  reserved  for  his  son-in-law 
Sunderland.  The  Parliament,  according  to  law,  determined 
in  six  months  after  the  decease  of  the  sovereign ;  and  at  the 
election  that  ensued  the  influence  of  the  Crown  was  thrown  im- 
scrupulously  into  the  scale  of  the  Whigs.  An  extraordinary 
Royal  Proclamation  was  issued  reflecting  on  the  evil  designs 
of  men  disaffiscted  to  the  King,  noticing  the  perplexity  of  public 
aff'airs,  the  interruption  of  commerce,  and  the  grievous  miscar- 
riages of  the  late  Government,  and  urging  the  electors,  in 
their  choice  of  members,  '  to  have  a  particular  regard  to  such  as 
showed  a  firmness  to  the  Protestant  succession  when  it  was  in 
danger.'  In  the  face  of  such  a  proclamation,  emanating  from 
the  sovereign  himself,  a  Tory  Parliament  would  have  been  a 
direct  incentive  to  civil  war.  The  Grovernment  exerted  all  its 
powers  over  the  electors.  An  immense  Whig  majority  was 
returned,  and  the  Parliament  which  assembled  in  the  begin- 
ning of  1715  formed  the  commencement  of  that  long  period 
of  Whig  ascendancy,  which  continued  without  intermission 
till  the  accession  of  Georgfe  III. 


184  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  u. 


CHAPTER   II. 

It  has  been  my  object  in  the  last  chapter  to  show  that  the 
triumph  of  the  Whig  policy,  which  was  effected  by  the  Eevolu- 
tion,  and  confirmed  by  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Brunswick, 
was  the  triumph  of  the  party  which  was  naturally  the  weakest 
in  England.  Several  isolated  political  events  contributed  to 
the  result,  but  the  chief  causes  were  the  superiority  of  the 
smaller  party  in  energy,  intelligence,  concentration,  and  or- 
ganisation, and  the  division  and  partial  paralysis  of  the  larger 
party,  arising  from  the  accidental  conflict  between  the  cause  of 
legitimacy  and  the  cause  of  Protestantism.  Before  proceeding 
to  relate  the  methods  by  which  the  Whig  power  was  con- 
solidated, and  the  manner  in  which  it  was  used,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  examine  the  chief  elements  of  which  it  was 
composed,  and  the  causes  of  its  political  bias.  Its  strength  lay 
in  three  quarters — the  aristocracy,  the  commercial  classes,  and 
the  Nonconformists. 

The  eminently  popular  character  of  the  English  aristocracy 
is  of  a  very  early  date,  and  it  has  probably  done  more  than  any 
other  single  cause  to  determine  the  type  and  ensure  the 
permanence  of  English  freedom.  The  position  of  the  Norman 
nobility  in  England  had  always  been  widely  diflferent  from 
that  of  the  same  nobility  at  home,  William  being  able  to  with- 
hold in  the  one  case  important  privileges  he  was  compelled  to 
recognise  in  the  other  ;  and  a  long  conflict,  in  which  the  nobles, 
in  alliance  with  the  Commons,  were  struggling  against  the 
power  of  the  monarchy,  contributed,  with  other  causes,  to  give 
a  popular  bias  to  the  former.     The  great  charter  had  been  won 


CH.  n.  THE  ENGLISH  AEISTOCRACY.  1 85 

by  the  barons,  but,  instead  of  being  confined  to  a  demand  for 
new  aristocratical  privileges,  it  guaranteed  the  legal  rights  of 
all  freemen,   and  the  ancient  customs  and  liberties  of  cities, 
prohibited  every  kind  of  arbitrary  punishment,  compelled  the 
barons  to  grant  their  subvassals  mitigations  of  feudal  burdens 
similar  to  those  which  they  themselves  obtained  from  the  King, 
and  even  accorded  special  protection  to  foreign  merchants  in 
England.     Philip  de  Comines  had  noticed  as  a  remarkable  fact 
the  singular  humanity  of  the  nobles  to  the  people  during  the 
civil  wars.     In  these  wars  the  nobility  were  almost  annihilated, 
and  as  they  were  but  little  increased   during  the   reign    of 
Henry  VII.,  the  revival   of  the  order  in  numbers  and  wealth 
dates  in  a  great  measure  from  the  innovating  and  liberal  move- 
ment of  the  Reformation.     The  Puritan  rebellion  was  chiefly 
democratic,  but  the  Eevolution  of  1688  was  chiefly  aristocratic  ; 
and  while  the  reforms  of  the  former  were  soon  swept  away,  and 
its  excesses  followed  by  a  long  reaction  towards  despotism,  the 
latter  founded    on    a   secure  basis   the   liberties  of  England. 
Although   Stuart  creations  had  raised  the   temporal   peerage 
from    59  to  about  150, — although  the  introduction  of  Scotch 
peers  at  the  Union,  and  the  simultaneous  creation  of  twelve 
Tory  peers  by  Harley,  had  impaired  the  liberalism  of  the  Upper 
House, — still  from  the  time  of  the  Eevolution  to  the  reign  of 
George  III.  the  Whig  party  almost  always  preponderated  in  it, 
and  contained  the  families  of  the  greatest  influence  and  dignity. 
The  House  of  Lords  threw  its  shelter  successively  over  Somers 
and  Walpole  when  the  House  of  Commons  was  ready  to  sacri- 
fice them.     By  its  strenuous  opposition  to  the  encroachments  of 
the  House  of  Commons  it  secured  for  electors  in  1704  the  all- 
important  right  of  defending  a  disputed  qualification  before  an 
impartial  legal  tribunal.     It  delayed  or  mitigated  the  perse- 
cuting legislation  directed  under  Anne  against  the  Dissenters. 
It  steadily  upheld  the  Protestant  succession  at  the  period  of  its 
greatest  peril,  and  during  the  long  Whig  rule  of  Walpole  and 
tlie  Pelhams  it  not  only  gave  the  Government  a  secure  majority 
in  one  House,  but  also,  by  the  influence  of  the  peers  over  the 


186  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

small  boroughs,  contributed  very  largely  to  the  majority  in  the 
other. 

The  causes  of  the  liberal  tendencies  that  have  so  broadly 
distinguished  the  English  nobility  from  those  of  most  other 
countries  are  to  be  found  not  only  in  the  traditions  of  its  early 
history,  but  also  in  the  constitution  of  the  order.  In  most  Con- 
tinental countries  an  aristocracy  has  a  tendency  to  become 
an  isolated  and  at  length  an  enervated  caste,  removed  from 
the  sympathies  and  occupations,  and  opposed  to  the  interests, 
of  the  community  at  large,  despising,  and,  therefore,  dis- 
crediting, all  active  occupations  except  those  of  a  soldier, 
and  thus  connecting  in  the  minds  of  men  the  idea  of  social 
rank  with  that  of  an  idle  and  frivolous  life.  But  in  Eng- 
land the  interests  of  the  nobles,  as  a  class,  have  been  carefully 
and  indissolubly  interwoven  wuth  those  of  the  people.  They 
have  never  claimed  for  themselves  any  immunity  from  taxa- 
tion. Their  sons,  except  the  eldest,  have  descended,  after  one  or 
two  generations,  into  the  ranks  of  the  commoners.  Their  eldest 
sons,  before  obtaining  their  titles,  have  usually  made  it  a 
great  object  of  their  ambition  to  sit  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  have  there  acquired  the  tastes  of  popular  politics.  In  the 
public  school  system  the  peers  and  the  lower  gentry  are  united 
in  the  closest  ties.  The  intermamage  of  peers  and  commoners 
has  always  been  legal  and  common.  A  constant  stream  of 
lawyers  of  brilliant  talents,  but  often  of  humble  birth,  has 
poured  into  the  Upper  House,  which  is  presided  over  by  one 
of  them ;  and  the  purely  hereditary  character  of  the  body  has 
been  still  further  qualified  by  the  introduction  of  the  bishops. 

Not  less  distinctive  and  remarkable  is  the  influence  which  the 
aristocracy  in  England  has  exercised  on  the  estimate  of  labour. 
One  of  the  chief  ends  of  the  whole  social  organisation  is  to  develop 
to  the  highest  point  and  apply  to  the  greatest  advantage  the  sum 
of  talent  existing  in  the  community.  In  its  first  rudimentary 
stage  Government  accomplishes  tliis  end  chiefly  in  a  negative 
■^ay,  by  discharging  those  police  functions  without  which  there 
can  be  no  peaceful  labour ;  but  with  the  increased  elaboration  of 


CH.  11.  USES   OF  AN   ARISTOCRACY.  187 

society  it  becomes  apparent  that  the  Legislature  can  in  two 
distinct  ways  directly  and  very  powerfully  assist  the  develop- 
ment. The  first  of  these  ways  is  by  supplying  opportunities  for 
the  exercise  of  talent  which  would  otherAvise  be  lost.  There  is 
at  every  period  latent  among  poor  men  a  large  amount  of 
special  talent  of  the  highest  value  which  cannot  be  elicited 
without  a  long  and  expensive  process  of  cultivation,  or  which, 
when  elicited,  is  of  a  kind  that  would  produce  no  pecuniary 
results  at  all  commensurate  with  its  importance,  and  which 
would,  therefore,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  either  remain 
wholly  uncultivated,  or  be  diverted  to  lower  but  more  lucrative 
channels.  It  is  one  of  the  most  useful  functions  of  government 
to  provide  means  by  which  poor  men  who  exhibit  some  special 
aptitude  may  be  brought  within  the  reach  of  an  appropriate 
education ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  advantages  of 
many  institutions  that  they  supply  requisite  spheres  for  the 
expansion  of  certain  casts  of  intellect,  and  adequate  rewards  for 
pursuits  which  are  of  great  value  to  the  community,  but  which  if 
left  to  the  unassisted  operation  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
would  remain  wholly,  or  in  a  great  degree,  unremunerative. 

The  manner  in  which  this  function  of  government  has  been 
executed  is  a  subject  to  which  I  shall  hereafter  revert.  At 
present,  however,  my  object  is  to  notice  a  second  way  in  which 
legislation  may  assist  intellectual  development.  If  much 
talent  is  wasted  on  account  of  want  of  opportunities,  much  also 
is  unemployed  for  want  of  incentives.  It  is  not  a  natm-al  or 
in  most  countries  a  common  thing  for  those  large  classes  who 
possess  all  the  means  of  enjoyment  and  luxury,  who  have  the 
world  before  them  to  choose  from,  and  who  have  never  known 
the  pressure  of  want  or  of  necessity,  to  devote  themselves  to  long, 
painful,  and  plodding  drudgery,  to  incur  all  the  responsibilities, 
anxiety,  calumny,  ingratitude,  and  bondage  of  public  life.  If 
in  the  case  of  men  of  extraordinary  ability  tlie  path  of  am- 
bition may  be  itself  sufficiently  attractive,  it  is  not  naturally 
60  to  rich  men  of  little  more  than  average  talent.  On  the 
other  hand,    tlie    forms    of   useful    laboiu:    which    are    unre- 


188      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  ii. 

munerative  to  the  labourer  are  so  numerous,  the  force  of  the 
example  of  the  higher  classes  is  so  great,  the  advantages  of 
independent  circumstances  for  the  prosecution  of  many  kinds 
of  labour  are  so  inestimable,  and  in  public  life  especially,  such 
circumstances  assist  men  so  powerfully  in  resisting  the  most 
fatal  temptations, .  that  the  existence  of  laborious  tastes  and 
habits  among  the  richer  classes  is  of  the  utmost  value  to  the 
community.  The  legislation  which  can  produce  them  will  not 
only  add  directly  to  the  amount  of  active  talent,  but  will  also 
set  the  whole  current  of  society  aright,  and  generate  in  the 
higher  classes  a  moral  influence  that  sooner  or  later  will 
permeate  all. 

The  indissoluble  connection  of  the  enjoyment  and  the 
dignity  of  property  with  the  discharge  of  public  duties  was  the 
pre-eminent  merit  of  feudalism,  and  it  is  one  of  the  special 
excellences  of  English  institutions  that  they  liave  in  a  great 
measure  preserved  this  connection,  notwithstanding  the  neces- 
sary dissolution  of  the  feudal  system.  This  achievement  has 
been  the  result  of  more  than  one  agency,  and  of  the  accumulated 
traditions  of  many  generations.  The  formation  of  an  unpaid 
magistracy,  and  the  great  governing  duties  thrown  upon  the 
House  of  Lords,  combined  with  the  vast  territorial  possessions 
and  the  country  tastes  of  the  upper  classes,  have  made  the 
gratuitous  discharge  of  judicial,  legislative,  and  administrative 
functions  the  natural  accompaniment  of  a  considerable  social 
position,  while  the  retrospective  habits  which  an  aristocracy 
creates  perpetuate  and  intensify  the  feelings  of  an  honourable 
ambition.  The  memory  of  great  ancestors,  and  the  desire  not 
to  suffer  a  great  name  to  fade,  become  an  incentive  of  the 
most  powerful  kind.  A  point  of  honour  conducive  to  exertion 
is  created,  and  men  learn  to  associate  the  idea  of  active  patriotic 
labour  with  that  of  the  social  condition  they  deem  most  desir- 
able. A  body  of  men  is  thus  formed  who,  with  circumstances 
peculiarly  favourable  for  the  successful  prosecution  of  important 
unremunerative  labours,  combine  dispositions  and  habits  emi- 
nently laborious,  and  who  have  at  the  same  time  an  unrivalled 


CH.  11.  USES   OF   AN   ARISTOCRACY.  189 

power  of  infusing  by  their  example  a  love  of  labour  into  the 
whole  community. 

The  importance  of  tlie  influence  thus  exercised  will  scarcely, 
I  think,  be  overlooked  by  those  who  will  remember  on  the  one 
hand,  how  many  great  nations  and  how  many  long  periods  have 
been  almost  destitute  of  developed  talent,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  how  very  little  evidence  we  have  of  the  existence  of  any 
great  difference  in  respect  to  innate  ability  between  different 
nations  or  ages.  The  amount  of  realised  talent  in  a  community 
depends  mainly  on  the  circumstances  in  which  it  is  placed,  and, 
above  all,  upon  the  disposition  that  animates  it.  It  depends  upon 
the  force  and  direction  that  have  been  given  to  its  energies, 
upon  the  nature  of  its  ambitions,  upon  its  conception  and 
standard  of  dignity.  In  all  large  classes  who  have  great  oppor- 
tunities, and,  at  the  same  time,  great  temptations,  there  will 
be  innumerable  examples  of  men  who  neglect  the  former  aud 
yield  to  the  latter  ;  but  it  can  hardly,  I  think,  be  denied  that  in 
no  other  country  has  so  large  an  amount  of  salutary  labour  been 
gratuitously  accomplished  by  the  upper  classes  as  in  England  ; 
and  in  the  present  day,  at  least,  aristocratic  influence  in 
English  legislation  is  chiefly  to  be  traced  in  the  number  of 
ofl&ces  that  are  either  not  at  all  or  insufficiently  paid.  The 
impulse  which  was  first  given  in  the  sphere  of  public  life  has 
gradually  extended  through  many  others,  and  in  addition  to 
many  statesmen,  orators,  or  soldiers, — in  addition  to  many  men 
who  have  exhibited  an  admirable  administrative  skill  in  the 
management  of  vast  properties  and  the  improvement  of 
numerous  dependants,  the  English  aristocracy  has  been  ex- 
tremely rich  in  men  who,  as  poets,  historians,  art  critics, 
linguists,  philologists,  antiquaries,  or  men  of  science,  have 
attained  a  great,  or,  at  least,  a  respectable  eminence.  The 
peers  in  England  have  been  specially  connected  with  two 
classes.  They  are  the  natm'al  representatives  of  the  whole 
body  of  country  gentlemen,  while,  from  their  great  wealth  and 
their  town  lives,  they  are  intimately  connected  with  that  impor- 
tant and  rapidly  increasing  class  who  have  amassed  or  inherited 


1 90      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  ii. 

laroe  fortunes  from  commerce  or  manufactures,  whose  politics 
during  the  early  Hanoverian  period  they  steadily  represented. 
It  will  be  found,  I  think,  that  the  House  of  Lords,  even  when 
most  Tory,  has  been  more  liberal  than  the  first  class,  and  has 
produced  in  proportion  to  its  numbers  more  political  talent 
than  the  latter. 

In  this  manner  it  appears  that  the  existence  of  a  powerful 
aristocracy,  and  the  political  functions  with  which  it  is  invested 
cannot  be  regarded  as  isolated  facts.  They  are  connected  with 
that  whole  condition  of  society  which  in  England  has  always 
thrown  on  the  upper  classes  the  chief  political  leadership  of  the 
country,  and  as  such  they  open  out  questions  of  the  gravest 
kind.  No  maxim  in  politics  is  more  certain  than  that,  when- 
ever a  single  class  possesses  a  monopoly  or  an  overwhelming 
preponderance  of  power,  it  will  end  by  abusing  it.  Whatever 
may  be  the  end  of  morals,  'the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number '  is  undoubtedly  the  rule  of  politics,  and  a 
system  of  government  which  throws  all  power  into  the  hands  of 
one  class,  of  the  smallest  class,  and  of  the  richest  class,  is  as- 
suredly not  calculated  to  promote  it.  But  it  is  one  thing  to 
give  a  class  a  monopoly  of  political  power  ;  it  is  quite  another 
thing  to  entrust  it,  under  the  restrictions  of  a  really  popular 
government,  with  the  chief  share  of  active  administration.  A 
structure  of  society  like  that  of  England  which  brings  the 
upper  class  into  such  political  prominence  tliat  they  usually 
furnish  the  popular  candidates  for  election,  has  at  least  the  advan- 
tage of  saving  the  nation  from  that  government  by  speculators, 
adventurers,  and  demagogues  which  is  the  gravest  of  all  the  evils 
to  which  representative  institutions  are  liable.  "When  the  suffrage 
is  widely  extended,  a  large  proportion  of  electors  will  always  be 
wholly  destitute  of  political  convictions,  while  every  artifice  is 
employed  to  mislead  them.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  very 
possible — in  many  countries  it  is  even  very  probable — that  the 
supreme  management  of  affairs  may  pass  into  the  hands  of 
men  who  are  perfectly  unprincipled,  who  seek  only  for  personal 
aggrandisement  or  personal  notoriety,  who  have  no  real  stake 


CH.  II.  USES   OF  AN   ARISTOCRACY.  1  91 

in  the  country,  and  who  are  perfectly  reckless  of  its  future  and 
its  permanent  intei'ests.  It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate 
the  dangers  that  may  result  from  even  a  short  period  of  such 
ride,  and  they  have  often  driven  nations  to  take  refuge  from 
their  own  representatives  in  the  arms  of  despotism.  The  dis- 
posal of  the  national  revenue  may  pass  into  the  liands  of  mere 
swindlers,  and  become  the  prey  of  simple  malversation.  The 
foreign  policy  of  the  country  may  be  directed  by  men  who 
seek  only  for  notoriety  or  for  the  consolidation  of  their  tottering 
power,  and  who  with  these  views  plunge  the  nation  into  wars 
that  lead  speedily  to  national  ruin.  In  home  politics  institu- 
tions which  are  lost  in  the  twilight  of  a  distant  past  may,  through 
similar  motives,  in  a  few  months  be  recklessly  destroyed.  Nearly 
all  great  institutions  are  the  growth  of  centuries ;  their  first  rise 
is  slow,  obscure,  undemonstrative,  they  have  been  again  and  again 
modified,  recast,  and  expanded  ;  their  founders  leave  no  reputa- 
tion, and  reap  no  harvest  from  their  exertions.  On  tlie  other 
hand,  the  destruction  of  a  great  and  ancient  institution  is  an  emi- 
nently dramatic  thing,  and  no  other  political  achievement  usually 
produces  so  much  noisy  reputation  in  proportion  to  the  ability 
it  requires.  The  catastroplie  (however  long  preparing)  is  con- 
centrated in  a  short  time,  and  the  name  of  the  man  who  effects 
it  is  immortalised.  As  a  great  writer'  has  finely  said,  '  When 
the  oak  is  felled,  the  whole  forest  echoes  with  its  fall,  but  a 
hundred  acorns  are  sown  in  silence  by  an  unnoticed  breeze.' 
Hence  to  minds  ambitious  only  of  notoriety,  careless  of  the 
permanent  interests  of  the  nation,  and  destitute  of  all  real 
feeling  of  political  responsibility,  a  policy  of  mere  destruction 
possesses  an  irresistible  attraction. 

From  tliese  extreme  evils  a  country  is  for  the  most  part 
saved  by  entrusting  the  management  of  its  affairs  chiefly  to 
the  upper  classes  of  the  community.  A  government  of  gen- 
tlemen may  be  and  often  is  extremely  deficient  in  intelligence, 
in  energy,  in  sympathy  with  the  poorer  classes.     It   may  be 

'  Carlyle, 


192  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  ii, 

shamefully  biassed  by  class  interests,  and  guilty  of  great  cor- 
ruption in  the  disposal  of  patronage,  but  the  standard  of  honour 
common  to  the  class  at  least  secures  it  from  the  grosser 
forms  of  malversation,  and  the  interests  of  its  members  are 
indissolubly  connected  with  the  permanent  well-being  of  the 
country.  Such  men  may  be  guilty  of  much  misgovernment, 
and  they  will  certainly,  if  uncontrolled  by  other  classes,  display 
much  selfishness,  but  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  they  should  be 
wholly  indifferent  to  the  ultimate  consequences  of  their  acts, 
or  should  divest  themselves  of  all  sense  of  responsibility  or 
public  duty.  When  other  things  are  equal,  the  class  which  has 
most  to  lose  and  least  to  gain  by  dishonesty  will  exhibit  the 
highest  level  of  integrity.  When  other  things  are  equal,  the 
class  whose  interests  are  most  permanently  and  seriously  bound 
up  with  those  of  the  nation  is  likely  to  be  the  most  careful 
guardian  of  the  national  welfare.  When  other  things  are 
equal,  the  class  which  has  most  leisure  and  most  means  of 
instruction  will,  as  a  whole,  be  the  most  intelligent.  Besides 
this,  the  tact,  the  refinement,  the  reticence,  the  conciliatory 
tone  of  thought  and  manner  characteristic  of  gentlemen  are 
all  peculiarly  valuable  in  public  men,  whose  chief  task  is  to 
reconcile  conflicting  pretensions  and  to  harmonise  jarring 
interests.  Nor  is  it  a  matter  of  slight  importance  to  the 
political  life  of  a  nation,  or  to  the  estimate  in  which  a  nation 
is  held  by  its  neighbours,  that  its  government  should  be  in  the 
hands  of  men  on  whom  no  class  can  look  down.  Rightly  or 
wrongly,  nations  are  judged  mainly  by  their  politicians  and  by 
their  political  acts,  and  when  these  have  ceased  to  command 
respect,  the  character  of  a  nation  in  the  world  is  speedily 
lowered. 

To  these  advantages,  arising  indirectly  from  the  inter- 
vention of  an  hereditary  aristocracy  in  government,  others  may 
be  added.  In  the  first  place  such  an  aristocracy  exists,  and, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  attracts  to  itself  among  great  multitudes 
of  men  a  warm  feeling  of  reverence  and  even  of  affection. 
It  is  the  part  of  wise   statesmen — and  it  is  one  of  the  cha- 


CH.  n.  USES   OF  AN   ARISTOCRACY.  193 

racteristics  by  which  such  men  are  distinguished  from  crude 
theorists — to  avail  themselves  for  the  purposes  of  government 
of  all  those  strong,  enduring,  and  unreasoning  attachments 
which  tradition,  associations,  or  other  causes  have  generated. 
Such  are,  the  sentiment  of  loyalty,  the  respect  for  religion,  the 
homage  paid  to  rank.  These  feelings  endear  government  to 
the  people,  counteract  any  feeling  of  repulsion  the  sacrifices  it 
exacts  might  produce,  give  it  that  permanence,  security,  and 
stability  which  are  essential  to  the  well-being  of  society. 
Sometimes,  no  doubt,  the  reverential,  or  conservative  elements 
have  an  excessive  force,  and  form  an  obstacle  to  progress  ;  but 
that  they  should  exist,  and  under  some  form  be  the  basis  of 
the  national  character,  is  the  essential  condition  of  all  per- 
manent good  government.  A  state  of  society  in  which  revolu- 
tion is  always  imminent  is  disastrous  alike  to  moral,  political, 
and  material  interests,  and  it  is  much  less  a  reasoning  con- 
viction than  unreasoning  sentiments  of  attachment  that  enable 
Governments  to  bear  the  strain  of  occasional  maladministration, 
revolutionary  panics,  and  seasons  of  calamity.' 

These  considerations  may  be  carried  a  step  farther.  All 
civic  virtue,  all  the  heroism  and  self-sacrifice  of  patriotism 
spring  ultimately  from  the  habit  men  acquire  of  regarding  their 
nation  as  a  great  organic  whole,  identifying  themselves  with  its 
fortunes  in  the  past  as  in  the  present,  and  looking  forward 
anxiously  to  its  future  destinies.  When  the  members  of  any 
nation  have  come  to  regard  their  coimtry  as  nothing  more  than 
the  plot  of  ground  on  which  they  reside,  and  their  Government  as 
a  mere  organisation  for  providing  police  or  contracting  treaties  ; 
when  they  have  ceased  to  entertain  any  warmer  feelings  for  one 
another  than  those  which  private  interest,  or  personal  friend- 
ship, or  a  mere  general  philanthropy,  may  produce,  the  moral 
dissolution  of  that  nation  is  at  hand.  Even  in  the  order  of 
material  interests  the  well-being  of  each  generation  is  in  a 
great  degree  dependent  upon  the  forbearance,  self-sacrifice,  and 

'  See    on    this    subject    a    noble       Lord  Russell's  Ennay  on  tlie  EnglUh 
passage,  full  of  profound  wisdom,  in       Co)istitution,^Tp.  211-212. 

VOL.  I.  14 


1U4  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ii. 

providence  of  those  who  have  preceded  it,  and  civic  virtues  can 
never  flourish  in  a  generation  which  thinks  only  of  itself. 
'  Those  will  not  look  forward  to  their  posterity  who  never  look 
backwards  to  their  ancestors.'  ^  To  kindle  and  sustain  the 
vital  flame  of  national  sentiment  is  the  chief  moral  end  of 
national  institutions,  and  while  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  has 
been  attained  under  the  most  various  forms  of  government,  it  is 
equally  certain  that  an  aristocracy  which  is  at  once  popular 
and  hereditary,  which  blends  and  assimilates  itself  with  the 
general  interests  of  the  present,  while  it  perpetuates  and 
honours  the  memories  of  the  past,  is  peculiarly  fitted  to 
foster  it. 

Another  advantage  which  should  not  be  neglected  in  a 
review  of  the  effects  of  aristocratic  institutions  is  their  ten- 
dency to  bring  young  men  into  active  political  life.  In 
politics,  as  in  most  other  professions,  early  training  is  of  ex- 
treme importance,  and  in  a  country  where  government  is  con- 
ducted mainly  through  the  instrumentality  of  Parliament,  this 
training,  to  be  really  efficient,  must  include  an  early  practice 
of  parliamentary  duties.  A  young  man  of  energy  and  industry, 
possessing  the  tact  and  manners  of  good  society,  and  endowed 
with  abilities  slightly  superior  to  those  of  the  average  of 
men,  is  likely,  if  brought  into  parliamentary  and  official  life 
between  20  and  30,  to  acquire  a  skill  in  the  conduct  of  public 
business  rarely  attained  even  by  men  of  great  genius  whose 
minds  and  characters  have  been  formed  in  other  spheres,  and 
who  have  come  late  into  the  arena  of  Parliament.  The  pre- 
sence in  Parliament  of  a  certain  number  of  young  politicians, 
from  whom  the  lower  offices  of  administration  may  be  filled,  and 
who  may  gradually  rise  to  the  foremost  places,  is  an  essential 
condition  of  the  weU-being  of  constitutional  government,  and 
it  is  one  of  the  conditions  which,  since  the  abolition  of  the 
nomination  boroughs,  it  has  become  most  difficult  to  attain. 
Popular  election  is  in  this  respect  exceedingly  worthless.     It 

'  Burke. 


cii.  11.  USES   OF  AX  ARISTOCRACY.  1 95 

may  be  trusted  to  create,  with  a  rough  but  substantial  justice,  a 
representation  of  public  opinion.  It  may  be  trusted,  but  much 
less  perfectly,  to  secure  some  recognition  of  old  services  and  of 
matured  genius,  but  an  extended  constituency  has  neither  the 
capacity  nor  the  desire  to  discover  undeveloped  talent,  or  to 
recognise  the  promise  of  future  excellence.  Hardly  any  other 
feature  of  our  parliamentary  system  appears  so  ominous  to  a 
thoughtful  observer  as  the  growing  exclusion  of  young  men 
from  the  Plouse  of  Commons,  and  if  a  certain  number  are  still 
found  within  its  walls,  this  is  mainly  due  to  that  aristocratic 
sentiment  which  makes  the  younger  members  of  noble  families 
the  favourite  candidates  with  many  constituencies. 

There  are  other  consequences  which  it  will  be  sufficient 
simply  to  enumerate.  The  existence  of  a  powerful,  indepen- 
dent, and  connected  class,  carrying  with  it  a  dignity,  and  in 
many  respects  an  influence,  fully  equal  to  that  of  the  ser- 
vants of  the  Crown,  has  more  than  once  proved  the  most  for- 
midable obstacle  to  the  encroachments  of  despotism ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  democratic  times  this  hierarchy  of  ranks 
serves  to  mitigate  the  isolation  of  the  throne,  and  is  thus  a 
powerful  bulwark  to  monarchy.  A  second  chamber  is  so  essen- 
tial to  the  healthy  working  of  constitutional  government  that  it 
may  almost  be  pronounced  a  political  necessity ;  and  in  times 
when  the  position  of  that  chamber  is  a  secondary  one,  when  its 
leading  functions  are  merely  to  delay  and  to  revise,  it  is  no 
small  advantage  that  it  should  be  composed  of  men  possessing, 
indeed,  great  local  knowledge  and  influence,  but  at  the  same 
time  independent  of  local  intrigues  and  jealousies,  and  of  the 
transient  bursts  of  popular  passion.  A  permanent  hereditary 
chamber  has  at  least  a  tendency  to  impart  to  national  policy 
that  character  of  continuity  and  stability,  and  to  infuse  into  its 
discussions  that  judicial  spirit  which  it  is  most  difficult  to  pre- 
serve amid  the  rapid  fluctuations  and  the  keen  contests  of  popular 
government.  It  may  even  very  materially  contribute  to  make 
legislation  a  reflex  of  the  popular  will.  No  matter  how  per- 
fect may  be  the  system  of  election,  an  elected  body  can  never 


196  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CEN-TUEY.  ch.  u. 

represent  with  complete  fidelity  the  political  sentiments  of  the 
community.  In  particular  constituencies  purely  local  and  per- 
sonal considerations  continually  falsify  the  political  verdict.  In 
the  coxmtry  at  large  a  general  election  usually  turns  on  a  single 
great  party  issue,  or  on  the  comparative  popularity  of  rival 
statesmen,  and  hardly  a  year  passes  in  which  the  politicians 
in  whom,  on  the  whole,  the  nation  has  most  confidence  do  not 
act  on  some  particular  question  in  a  manner  opposed  to  the 
national  sentiment.  If  the  question  is  a  subordinate  one,  this 
divero-ence  does  not  make  the  country  desire  a  change  of 
ministry;  and  it  is  extremely  difficult,  under  the  system  of 
party  government,  to  enforce  by  any  less  violent  means  the 
national  will.  Under  these  circumstances  a  body  such  as  the 
House  of  Lords,  exempt  from  the  necessity  of  popular  election, 
representing  at  the  same  time  most  of  the  forms  of  public 
opinion,  and  exercising  in  the  constitution  a  kind  of  revising, 
judicial,  and  moderating  office,  is  of  great  utility ;  it  is  able  to 
arrest  or  retard  a  particular  course  of  policy,  without  pro- 
ducing a  ministerial  crisis,  and  it  may  thus  be  said,  without  a 
paradox,  to  contribute  to  the  representative  character  of  the 
government.  Besides  this,  the  peerage  enables  the  country 
to  avail  itself  of  the  talents  of  statesmen  of  ability  and  experi- 
ence, who  are  physically  incapable  of  enduring  the  fatigue 
inseparable  from  the  position  of  a  minister  in  the  Lower  House ; 
it  forms  a  cheap  yet  highly  prized  reward  for  great  services  to 
the  nation  or  the  Crown ;  and  it  exercises  in  some  respects  a 
considerable  refining  uffiuence  upon  the  manners  of  society  bv 
counteracting  the  empire  of  mere  wealth,  and  sustaining  that 
order  of  feelings  and  sentiments  which  constitutes  the  concep- 
tion of  a  gentleman.  Nor  should  we  altogether  disregard  its 
minor  uses  in  settling  doubtful  questions  of  precedence,  and 
marking  out  the  natural  leaders  for  many  movenaents,  which 
would  otherwise  be  weakened  by  conflicting  claims  and  bv 
personal  jealousies. 

There  are,  no  doubt,  serious  drawbacks  to  these  benefits. 
No  human  institution  is  either  an  unmitigated  good  or  an  un- 


CH.  n.  EVILS   OF  AX   ARISTOCRACY.  197 

mitigated  evil ;  and  the  main  task  of  every  statesman  and  of 
every  sound  political  thinker  is  to  weigh  with  impartiality  the 
good  and  evil  consequences  that  arise  out  of  each.  Considered 
abstractedly,  every  institution  is  an  evil  which  teaches  men  to 
estimate  their  fellows  not  according  to  their  moral  and  intel- 
lectual worth,  hut  by  an  unreal  and  factitious  standard.  The 
worship  of  baubles  and  phantasms  necessarily  perverts  the 
moral  judgment,  nor  can  anyone  who  is  acquainted  with 
English  society  doubt  that  in  this  respect  the  evil  of  aristocratic 
institutions  is  deeply  felt  in  every  grade.  Their  moral  eflFects 
are,  on  the  whole,  more  doubtful  than  their  political  eflFects, 
and  the  servile  and  sycophantic  dispositions,  the  vulgarity  of 
thought  and  feeling  they  tend  to  foster  in  the  community 
form  the  most  serious  counterpoise  to  their  undoubted  advan- 
tages. These  evils,  however,  lie  far  too  deep  for  mere  politi- 
cal remedies ;  and  when  the  worship  of  rank  and  the 
worship  of  wealth  are  in  competition  it  may,  at  least,  be  said 
that  the  existence  of  the  two  idols  diminishes  by  dividing  the 
force  of  each  superstition,  and  that  the  latter  evil  is  an  increas- 
ing one,  while  tlie  former  is  never  again  likely  to  be  a  danger. 
The  injurious  efifects  of  aristocratic  influence  may,  however, 
be  abundantly  traced  in  the  desire  to  aggregate  the  vast  pre- 
ponderance of  family  property  in  a  single  heir,  which  is  often 
displayed  in  England  to  an  extent  that  is  an  outrage  upon 
morality;  in  the  frequent  spectacle  of  many  children — often 
daughters,  who  are  almost  incapable  of  earning  a  livelihood 
— reduced  to  penury,  in  order  that  the  eldest  son  may 
gratify  the  family  vanity  by  an  adequate  display  of  ostenta- 
tious luxury ;  in  the  scandalous  injustice  of  the  law  relating  to 
intestacy.  Although  it  would  be  an  absurd  exaggeration  to 
attribute  to  the  existence  of  an  aristocracy  the  frightful  con- 
trast of  extreme  opulence  and  abject  misery  which  is  so  fre- 
quent in  England,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  excessive 
inequality  of  the  di>tribution  of  wealth,  resulting  from  laws 
which  were  originally  intended  to  secure  the  preponderance  of 
a  class,  and  from  manners  which  were  originally  the  product 


198  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

of  those  laws,  has  most  seriously  aggravated  it.  The  laws  have 
for  the  most  part  passed  away,  but  the  habits  that  grew  out  of 
them  remain,  and  they  operate  over  a  far  larger  circle  than 
that  of  the  aristocracy.  Great  as  is  the  use  of  the  peerage  in 
sustaining  public  spirit  in  the  nation,  it  is  unquestionable 
that  the  passion  for  founding  families  which  it  produces,  dimi- 
nishes largely  the  flow  of  private  munificence  to  public  objects, 
and  its  value  in  promoting  laborious  habits  is  in  some  degree 
counteracted  by  its  manifest  tendency  to  depress  the  purely 
intellectual  classes.  Eank  is  much  less  local  in  its  influence 
than  wealth,  and  wherever  a  powerful  aristocracy  exists,  it 
overshadows  intellectual  eminence,  and  becomes  its  successful 
rival  in  most  forms  of  national  competition.  The  political 
advantages  of  an  hereditary  chamber  are  very  great,  but  the 
power  of  unlimited  veto  resting  in  such  a  chamber  is  a  grave 
anomaly  in  a  free  government.  Nor  is  it  one  of  those  ano- 
malies which  are  merely  theoretical.  On  great  questions  on 
which  popular  passions  are  violently  aroused,  the  spirit  of  com- 
promise and  political  sagacity  so  general  among  the  upper  classes 
in  England,  may  usually  be  counted  on  to  prevent  serious 
collisions ;  and  the  power  of  creating  an  unlimited  number  of 
peers  provides  in  the  last  resort  an  extreme,  dangerous,  but 
efficient  remedy.  There  are,  however,  many  questions  on 
which  the  national  judgment  is  plainly  pronounced,  but  which 
from  their  nature  do  not  appeal  to  any  strong  passions,  and  on 
these  the  obstructive  power  of  the  House  of  Lords  has  some- 
times proved  very  mischievous.  More  than  one  measure  of 
reform  has  thus  been  rejected  through  several  successive  Parlia- 
ments, in  spite  of  unbroken  and  repeated  majorities  in  the 
Lower  House. 

Looking  again  at  the  question  from  a  purely  historical 
standing-point,  it  is  certain  that  the  politicians  of  the  Upper 
House  were  deeply  tainted  with  the  treachery  and  duplicity 
common  to  most  English  statesmen  between  the  Restoration 
and  the  American  Eevolution.  Most  of  the  Bills  for  prevent- 
ing corrupt  influence  in  the  Commons  during  the  administra- 


1 


CH.  II.  ITS  HISTORIC   TENDENCIES.  199 

tion  of  Walpole  were  crushed  by  the  influence  of  tlie  minister 
in  the  House  of  Lords.     The  country  was  long  seriously  bur- 
dened, and  some  of  the  professions  were  systematically  degraded, 
in  order  to  furnish  lucrative  posts  for  the  younger  members  of 
tlie  aristocratic  families ;  and  the  representative  character  of 
the  Lower  House  was  so  utterly  perverted  by  the  multiplication 
of  nomination  boroughs  in  the  hands  of  the  peers  that  a  storm 
of  indignation  was  at  last  raised  which  shook  the  very  pillars 
of  the  constitution.     Still,  even  in  these  respects,  the  English 
nobility  form  a  marked  contrast  to  those   of  the  Continent. 
Though  rank  has  in  England  almost  always  brought  with  it  a 
very  disproportionate  weight,  although  it  is  imdoubtedly  true 
that  in  the  last  years  of  George  IL  and  in  the  first  years  of 
George  III.  three  or  four  aristocratic  families   threatened  to 
control  the  eflScient  power  in  the  State,  yet,  on  the  whole,  no 
other  aristocracy  has  shown  itself  so   free  from  the  spirit   of 
monopoly.     In  the  great  Whig  period,  from  the  Revolution  till 
the  death  of  AValpole,  there  were  numerous  instances  of  states- 
men who  were  not  of  noble  birth  taking  a  foremost  place  in 
English  politics.*     The  names  of  Somers,  Montague,  Churchill, 
Addison,  Craggs,  and  many  others  will  at  once  occur  to  the 
reader,  and  the  most  powerful  leader  of  this  age  was  a  simple 
country  gentleman,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  who 
was  so  far  from  allowing  himself  to  be  the  puppet  of  anyone, 
that  one  of  the   chief  faults  of  his    administration   was   his 
extreme  reluctance  to  part  with  the  smallest  share  of  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Government.     The  steady  support  which  the  Whig 
House  of  Lords   gave   to    Walpole  during  every  stage  of  his 
career  is  a  decisive  proof  not  only  of  its  enlightenment  but  also 
of  its  moderation.     Nor  is  this  less  true  of  the  opposite  party. 
No  Tory  minister  has  had  so  absolute  an  authority  as  William 

'  This  has  been  noticed,  bj'  Swift,  new  men,  with  few  exceptions.'    He 

in  a  very  remarkable  paper  on  the  ascribes  this  chiefly  to  the  defective 

Decline  of  the  Political  Influence  of  education  of  the  upper  classes.  Swift 

the   Nobility,   in    the    Intelligencer,  was,  I  believe,  -wTongf,  in  imagining 

No.  9.     He  declares  that  'for  above  that   aristocratic   influence   had  de« 

sixty  years  past  the  chief  conduct  of  clined. 
affairs  hath  been  generally  placed  in 


200  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch   it. 

Pitt,  and  in  the  period  of  the  darkest  and  most  bigoted 
Toryism  the  House  of  Lords  was  governed  with  an  almost 
absolute  sway  by  the  knowledge  and  the  ability  of  Eldon.  If 
the  nomination  boroughs  were  perverted,  as  they  undoubtedly 
were  to  a  very  large  extent,  to  the  most  selfish  purposes,  it  is 
also  true  that  there  was  sufficient  public  spirit  among  their 
proprietors  to  induce  them  to  bring  into  the  House  of  Com- 
mons a  far  larger  proportion  of  young  men  of  promise  and 
genius  than  have  ever,  under  any  other  system,  entered  its 
walls.  If  the  numerous  Tory  creations  of  George  III.  at  last 
altered  the  spirit  of  the  body,  it  should  at  least  not  be  for- 
gotten that  the  old  tradition  never  was  extinct,  that  in  the 
great  struggle  of  the  Eeform  Bill  some  of  the  chief  aristocratic 
borough-owners  were  among  the  foremost  advocates  of  the 
people,  and  that  the  large  majority  of  the  peers  of  an  older 
creation  than  George  III.  were  on  the  same  side,^  while  the 
most  obstinate  opponents  of  progress  found  their  leaders  in 
Eldon  and  Lyndhurst,  who  had  but  lately  risen  from  the 
ranks. 

There  was,  however,  one  marked  exception  to  the  general 
tenor  of  aristocratic  politics.  One  attempt  was  made,  which,  if 
it  had  been  successful,  would  have  converted  the  English 
nobility  into  a  separate  caste.  I  allude,  of  course,  to  the 
Peerage  Bill,  which  was  introduced  by  the  ministry  of  Sunder- 
land and  Stanhope,  in  1719,  and  which  was,  perhaps,  the  most 
dangerous  constitutional  innovation  since  the  Eevolution.  It 
was  inspired  by  the  party  interest  of  the  Whigs,  and  it  was 
intended  to  prevent  the  son  of  George  I.,  who  was  in  opposition 
to  his  father,  from  overthrowing,  if  he  came  to  the  throne,  the 
Whig  majority  in  the  Upper  House  by  the  creation  of  Tory 
peers.  Had  it  been  carried,  it  would  have  made  the  House  of 
Lords  an  almost  unchangeable  body,  entirely  beyond  the  control 
of  King  or  Minister  or  Commons.  It  provided  that,  with  the 
exception   of  members   of  the    Eoyal  Family,  the    sovereign 

'  Molesworth's  Hist,  of  England,  i.  203. 


cii.  11.  THE  PEERAGE  BILL.  201 

should  at  DO  time  be  allowed  to  add  more  than  six  to  tlie 
number  of  the  English  hereditary  peers  existing  when  the  Bill 
was  passed  ;  though,  whenever  a  peerage  became  extinct,  he 
might  make  a  creation  to  replace  it ;  and  also  that  twenty-five 
Scotch  peers,  selected  in  the  first  instance  by  the  sovereign  and 
afterwards  sitting  by  hereditary  right,  should  be  substituted  for 
the  sixteen  elective  peers.  It  is  obvious  that  such  a  measure 
would  have  given  the  peerage  all  the  characteristics  of  a  close 
corporation,  would  have  prevented  that  influx  into  its  ranks  of 
legal,  political,  and  commercial  talent  which  now  constitutes 
one  of  its  most  distinctive  merits,  would  have  in  consequence 
destroyed  its  value  as  a  reward  of  genius,  and  its  weight  as  a 
representative  body,  and  would  have  abolished  the  only  means 
which  the  constitution  provides  for  overcoming,  in  extreme 
cases,  the  opposition  of  the  Lords.  Yet  this  Bill  was  introduced 
by  the  party  which  is  the  natural  guardian  of  the  popular 
element  in  the  constitution,  and  it  had  at  first  considerable 
prospect  of  success.  The  King  readily  relinquished  his  pre- 
rogative of  imlimited  creation.  The  indignation  excited  by 
the  lavish  creations  of  Harley  in  1712  was  largely  made  use  of. 
The  pen  of  Addison  was  enlisted  in  the  cause.  The  Bill 
appealed  at  once  to  the  party  spirit  of  the  Whigs,  who  designed 
to  perpetuate  their  ascendancy,  and  to  the  class  feeling  of  the 
peers,  who  desired,  by  preventing  new  creations,  to  increase  their 
consequence ;  and  it  was  carried  without  difficulty  through  the 
Lords.  Fortunately,  however,  a  great  storm  of  indignation  was 
soon  aroused.  Steele,  whose  judgment  it  is  the  custom  of  some 
writers  invariably  to  decry,  employed  all  his  talent  in  exposing 
the  dangers  of  tlie  scheme,  and  his  essays,  though  they  de- 
stroyed his  friendship  with  Addison,  and  brought  down  upon 
his  head  the  prompt  vengeance  of  the  Government,^  were  of 

'  He   had  obtained   a  patent  for  Steele,  ii.  210-216.     Few  writers   of 

the  theatre  of  Drury    Lane,  but  as  the  eighteenth  century  liave  received 

soon  as  he  opposed  the  Government  harder  measure  from  modern  critics 

scheme   the   Lord    Cliamberlain   re-  than  Steele.     I  must  except,  however, 

voked  his  licence  for  actini?  plays,  the   essay   on   his   life   in    Foister's 

and  thus  reduced  him  to  complete  Biographical  Essays. 
ruin.      See     Montgomery's    Life  of 


202  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch   n. 

immense  service  to  the  real  interests  of  the  country.  Walpole, 
who  was  at  this  time  in  opposition,  both  spoke  and  wrote 
against  the  Bill  with  consummate  power.  The  jealousy  of  the 
country  gentry  was  aroused  when  they  saw  the  portals  of  the 
Upper  House  about  to  close  for  ever  against  them  ;  and  the  Bill 
was  lost  in  the  Commons  by  269  to  177. 

This,  however,  was  but  a  passing  aberration ;  and  it  was  due 
much  more  to  party  interest  than  to  aristocratic  exclusiveness. 
In  general,  the  services  of  the  peers  to  the  cause  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  at  the  time  we  are  considering,  were  incon- 
testable, and  the  advantage  of  an  Upper  House  in  this  portion 
of  our  history  can  scarcely  be  questioned  by  anyone  who  re- 
gards the  Eevolution,  and  the  principles  it  established,  as  good. 
Its  members  formed,  perhaps,  the  most  important  section  of 
the  Whig  party,  for  they  were  at  this  time  almost  at  the  acme 
of  their  influence.  The  overshadowing  majesty  of  the  Church 
had  been  broken  at  the  Eeformation.  The  monarchy  had  been 
seriously  restricted  by  the  Eevolution,  and  the  great  democratic 
agencies  of  modern  times  were  still  in  their  infancy.  In 
opulence  the  nobles  were  altogether  unrivalled.  The  Indian 
nabobs,  whose  great  fortunes  in  some  degree  competed  with 
them,  only  came  into  prominence  in  the  reign  of  George  III., 
and  the  great  commercial  fortunes  belong  chiefly  to  a  still  later 
period.  The  numerous  sinecures  at  their  disposal  secured 
the  nobility  a  preponderance  both  of  wealth  and  influence ; 
the  tone  of  manners  before  the  introduction  of  railways 
was  far  more  favourable  than  at  present  for  a  display  of  the 
pomp  and  the  pretensions  of  rank ;  and  the  borough  system 
gave  the  great  families  a  commanding  influence  in  the  Lower 
House. 

In  addition  to  the  aristocracy,  the  Whigs  could  usually  count 
upon  the  warm  support  of  the  moneyed  classes  and  of  the  Dissen- 
ters, who  in  this,  as  in  most  other  periods,  were  very  closely 
united.  The  country,  it  has  been  justly  said,  always  represents  the 
element  of  permanence,  and  the  towns  the  element  of  progress. 
In  the  former  the  national  spirit  is  usually  the  most  intense,  and 


CH.  n.  THE  C03OIEECIAL  CLASSES.  203 

the  force  of  tradition,  prejudice,  and  association  most  supreme. 
New  ideas,  on  the  other  hand,  appear  most  quickly,  and  circulate 
most  easily,  in  the  crowded  centres  of  population  ;  and  the  habits 
of  industrial  speculation,  the  mig^ratory  nature  of  capital,  and 
the  contact  with  many  nations  and  with  manv  creeds  resulting-' 
from  commercial  intercourse,  tend  to  sever,  both  for  good  and 
for  ill,  the  chain  of  tradition.     At  the  time  of  the  Reformation 
the  towns  were  the  strongholds  of  Protestantism,  at  the  time 
of  the  Commonwealth  they  were  the  strongholds  of  Puritanism, 
and  in  the  Hanoverian,  as  in  most  subsequent  periods,  of  liberal 
politics.     On   religious  questions  -this  bias  has  been   especially 
strong.  It  is  an  ingenious,  and,  I  believe,  a  just  remark  of  Sir  W. 
Petty  that  '  trade  is  most  vigorously  carried  on  in  every  state 
and  government  by  the  heterodox  part  of  the  same,  and  such  as 
profess  opinions  different  from  what  are  pubKcly  established.'  ^ 
The  fact  may  be  ascribed  partly,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  superior 
accessibility  of  the  town  populations  to  new  and  innovating 
ideas,  and  partly  also  to  persecuting  laws  which  divorced  heretics 
from  the  soil,  and  led  them  to  seek  forms  of  industry  of  which 
the  fruits  in  seasons  of  trial  can  be  easily  realised  and  displaced. 
The  result  has  been  that  religious  persecution  has  usually  fallen 
with  a  peculiar  severity  upon  commercial  interests ;  and  in  the 
two  centuries  that  followed  the  Reformation  hardly  any  other 
single  circumstance  afifected  so  powerfully  the  relative  indus- 
trial position  of  nations  as  the  degrees  in  which  they  conceded 
religious   toleration.     Among  the  less  noticed  consequences  of 
the  Reformation,  perhaps  the  most  important  was  the  dispersion 
of  industry  produced  by  the  many  thousands  of  skilled  artisans 
who  were  driven  by  persecution  beyond  their  national  borders, 
carrying  with  them  trades  which  had  hitherto  been  strictly  or 
mainly  local,  and  planting  them  wherever  they  settled.     Xor 
was   this  the    only   result    of    the   migration.     Men   who   are 
prepared  to  abandon  friends  and  coimtry  rather  than  forsake  a 
religion  which  is  not  that  of  their  nation  are  usually  superior 

•  Political  Arithmetic,  p.  118. 


204  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  u. 

to  the  average  of  their  fellow-countrymen  in  intelligence,  and 
are  almost  always  greatly  superior  to  them  in  strength  and 
nobility  of  character.  Eeligious  persecution,  by  steadily  weeding 
out  such  men  from  a  community,  slowly  but  surely  degrades 
the  national  type,  while  a  policy  of  toleration  which  attracts 
refuo-ees  representing  the  best  moral  and  industrial  qualities  of 
other  nations  is  one  of  the  most  efficient  of  all  means  of  expand- 
ing and  improving  it. 

The  effect  of  these  influences  on  the  well-being  of  nations 
has  been  very  great.  The  ruin  of  Spain  may  be  chiefly  traced 
to  the  expulsion  or  extirpation  of  her  Moorish,  Jewish,  and 
heretical  subjects;  and  French  industry,  and  stiU  more  French 
character,  have  never  recovered  the  injury  they  received  from 
the  banishment  of  the  most  energetic  and  enlightened  portion 
of  the  nation.  By  the  Eevocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and 
by  the  savage  persecution  which  immediately  preceded  and 
followed  it,  France  probably  lost  upwards  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  of  her  most  industrious  citizens  ;^  and,  amid  the  enthu- 
siastic applause  of  the  Catholic  party,  a  blow  was  struck  at  her 
true  interests,  of  which  some  of  the  effects  may  be  perceived 
even  to  the  present  day.  Bossuet,  Massillon,  and  Flechier, 
vied  with  each  other  in  extolling  the  new  Theodosius  who  had 
banished  heresy  from  the  land.  The  Chancellor  Le  Tellier 
repeated  the  ecstatic  words  of  Simeon  as  he  affixed  the  great 
seal  to  the  Act.  The  Abbe  Tallemand  eulogised  it  in  glowing 
terms  in  the  French  Academy.  Madame  de  Sevigne  wrote 
that  no  other  king  either  had  done  or  could  do  a  nobler 
act.  Tlie  brush  of  Le  Sueur  was  employed  to  illustrate  it  on 
the  walls  of  Versailles,  and  medals  were  struck,  and  a  bronze 
statue  was  erected  in  front  of  the  Town  Hall,  to  commemorate 
the  triumph  of  the  Church.  The  results  of  that  triumph  may 
be  soon  told.     Many  of  the  arts  and  manufactures  which  had 

'  The  estimates,  as  might  he  ex-  collection  of  estimates  from  different 

pected,  vary  greatly.     Voltaire   put  writers,  in   Macphersons  Annals  of 

the  number  as  high  as  600,000,  and  Commerce,  ii.  616-620. 
some    writers    still    higher.     See  a 


REFUGEE  INDUSTRY. 


205 


been  for  generations  most  distinctively  French  passed  for  ever 
to  Holland,  to  Germany,  or  to  England.  Local  liberties  in 
France  received  their  death-blow  when  those  who  most 
strenuously  supported  them  were  swept  out  of  the  country.  The 
destruction  of  the  most  solid,  the  most  modest,  the  most 
virtuous,  the  most  generally  enlightened  element  in  the  French 
nation  prepared  the  way  for  the  inevitable  degradation  of  the 
national  character,  and  the  last  serious  bulwark  was  removed 
that  might  have  broken  the  force  of  that  torrent  of  scepticism 
and  vice,  which,  a  century  later,  laid  prostrate,  in  merited  ruin, 
both  the  altar  and  the  throne.' 

Not  less  conspicuous  was  the  benefit  derived  by  nations 
which  pursued  an  opposite  course.  Holland,  which  had  suffered 
so  severely,  and  in  so  many  ways,  from  religious  intolerance 
under  the  Spanish  domination,  made  it  a  main  object  of  her 
policy  to  attract  by  perfect  religious  liberty  the  scattered 
energies  of  Europe  ^ ;  and  Prussia  owes  to  the  same  cause  not 
a  little  of  her  moral  and  industrial  greatness.  Twenty  thousand 
Frenchmen,  attracted  to  Brandenbiu-g  by  the  liberal  encourage- 
ment of  the  Elector,  at  the  time  of  the  Eevocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes,  laid  the  foundation  of  the  prosperity  of  Berlin,  and 
of  most  of  the  manufactures  of  Prussia ;  ^  and  the  later  per- 


'  Mr.  Pattison,  in  his  admirable 
Lxfe  of  Coiavhon,  has  made  some 
strikino:  remarks  on  the  pre-eminence 
of  the  French  Protestants  in  the  very 
moral  qualities  in  which  the  French 
nation  as  a  whole  is  now  most 
deficient. 

^  It  is  remarkable  to  find  the 
leading  English  authority  on  trade 
as  early  as  1670,  specifying  among 
the  causes  of  the  great  commercial 
prosperity  of  the  Dutch,  'their 
toleration  of  different  opinions  in 
matters  of  religion,  by  reason  of 
which  many  industrious  .  people  of 
other  countries  that  dissent  from  the 
established  government  of  tlieir 
Church  resort  to  them,  with  their 
families  and  estates,  and  after  a  few 
years'  cohabitation  with  them  become 


of  the  same  common  interest.' — Sir 
J.  Child's  Discourse  of  Trade  (5th 
ed.),  p.  4.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find 
the  greatest  Tory  writer  of  the  next 
generation  denouncing  'the  false 
politicks  of  a  set  of  men  who  .  .  . 
take  it  into  their  imagination  that 
trade  can  never  flourish  unless  the 
country  becomes  a  common  receptacle 
for  all  nations,  religions,  and  lan- 
guages—a system  only  proper  for 
small,  popular  States.'— Swift's  Ex- 
aminer, No.  21.  See.  too,  his  Senti- 
ments of  a  ChurcJi  of  England  Man. 

*  Frederick  the  Great  (.Vwurs  et 
Coutnmes),  (Euvres  de  Frid.,  tom.  i. 
p.  227,  gives  a  long  catalogue  of  the 
industries  planted  in  Brandenburg  by 
the  refugees.  See,  too,  Weiss 's  Hist, 
des  Refugies  Fran^ais. 


206  ENGLAISD   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

secutions  of  Salzburg  and  Bohemia  drove  many  thousands  of 
Southern  Germans  to  her  soil.  After  the  Eevocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  it  was  noticed  that  in  Zell  and  Hanover 
French  was  spoken  and  written  as  purely  as  in  Paris,  and  a 
refinement  hitherto  unknown  began  to  distinguish  the  Northern 
Courts.'  Even  Eussia  sought  to  attract  French  energy  for  the 
development  of  her  slumbering  powers,  and  at  the  instance 
of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  an  imperial  ukase  was  issued, 
offering  liberty,  settlement,  and  employment  to  the  refugees.^ 

But  no  country  owes  more  to  her  toleration  than  England. 
For  nearly  two  centuries  a  steady  stream  of  refugees,  repre- 
senting tlie  best  Continental  types,  poured  into  her  population, 
blending  with  English  life,  transmitting  their  qualities  of 
mind  and  character  to  English  descendants,  and  contributing 
immensely  to  the  perfection  and  variety  of  English  industry. 
Elizabeth,  though  her  religious  opinions  were  very  inimical 
to  those  of  the  Continental  Protestants,  with  the  instinct  of 
true  political  genius,  invariably  encouraged  the  immigration, 
and,  in  spite  of  more  than  one  remonstrance  from  the  French 
sovereign,  of  much  hatred  of  foreigners  and  Dissenters,  of 
much  jealousy  of  local  interests  and  of  rival  trades,  there  was 
always  sufficient  good  sense  among  the  English  rulers  to  main- 
tain the  toleration.  For  a  short  time,  indeed,  the  persecuting 
and  meddling  policy  of  Laud  threatened  to  overthrow  it. 
That  mischievous  prelate  had  hardly  obtained  the  See  of 
Canterbury,  when  he  ordered  that  those  members  of  the 
foreign  communities  who  had  been  born  in  England  should  be 
compelled  to  attend  the  Anglican  Church,  while  the  English 
liturgy  was  to  be  translated  into  Dutch  and  Walloon  in  the  hope 
of  converting  the  others.^  The  civil  war,  however,  restored 
the  liberty  of  the  refugees,  and  though  they  were  afterwards 
exposed  to  much  unpopularity  and  to  serious  riots,  though,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  Bill  for  the  general  naturalisation  of  foreign 

'  Kemble's  State  Papers,  p.  386.  Protestant  Refugees  in  England,  pp, 

2  Ibid.  pp.  388-389.  ]  5-16. 

^  See  Southerden  Burn's  Hist,  of 


CH.  u.  REFUGEE   INDUSTRY.  207 

Protestants  was  repealed,  they  continued,  far  into  the  eighteenth 
century,  to  make  England  their  favourite  resort. 

The  extent  and  importance  of  the  successive  immigrations 
have  hardly  been  appreciated  by  English  historians.  Those  which 
were  due  to  religious  causes  appear  to  have  begun  in  1567, 
when  the  news  of  the  intended  entry  of  Alva  into  tlie  Nether- 
lands was  known,  and  when,  as  the  Duchess  of  Parma  wrote 
to  Philip,  more  than  100,000  persons  in  a  few  days  abandoned 
their  country.  Great  numbers  of  them  took  refuge  in  Eng- 
land, and  they  were  followed,  in  1572,  by  a  crowd  of  French 
Huguenots,  who  had  escaped  from  St.  Bartholomew;  and  in 
1585,  on  the  occasion  of  the  sacking  of  Antwerp,  by  about  a 
third  part  of  the  merchants  and  workmen  of  that  city.  A 
century  later  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  produced  a 
new  immigration  of  French  Protestants,  variously  estimated  at 
from  fifty  to  a  hundred  thousand.  Several  thousand  Germans, 
chiefly  from  the  Palatinate,  came  over  in  1709;  many  others 
about  1732,  after  the  persecutions  in  Salzburg;  and  towards 
the  middle  of  the  century  a  renewal  of  persecution  in  France 
was  followed  by  a  fresh  French  immigration.  In  this  manner 
the  commercial  classes  in  England  were  at  length  thoroughly 
pervaded  by  a  foreign  element.  Spitalfields  was  almost 
wholly  inhabited  by  French  silk  manufacturers.  lu  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the  population  of 
London  was  probably  about  600,000,'  it  contained  no  less  than 
thirty-five  French  Protestant  churches.*  Important  refugee 
settlements  were  planted  at  Norwich,  Canterbury,  Sandwich, 
Yarmouth,  Ipswich,  Exeter,  Bideford,  and  Barnstaple ;  and 
there  is  hardly  a  town  in  England  in  which  their  presence 
"  may  not  be  traced.  Nor  were  they  confined  to  England.  Great 
numbers  went  over  to  Ireland.  French  Protestant  churches 
were  founded  in  New  York  and  Charlestown,  about  1724,  and 
Salzburg  refugees  were  very  prominent  in  the  colonisation  of 

'  Fetiy,in  his  Political  A)-ithmetic,  puted  it  at  only  530,000.  See  Craik's 

published    in    1687,    estimated    the  2Iist.  of  Comvu^rce,  ii.  115. 

population    of    London   at    696,000.  *  Smiles's  Huguenots  in  England. 

Gregory  King,  ten  years  later,  com-  p.  278. 


208  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  ]i, 

Georgia.  About  1732,  a  colony  of  French  Protestants  settled 
in  Edinburgh,  where  they  introduced  the  manufacture  of 
cam))ric.  Some  were  incorporated  in  the  British  army,  but 
by  far  the  greater  number  were  employed  in  manufactures, 
many  of  them  in  forms  of  industry  which  had  been  wholly 
unknown  in  England.  Cloth  makers  from  Antwerp  and  Bruges, 
lace  makers  from  Valenciennes,  cambric  makers  from  Cambray, 
glass  makers  from  Paris,  stuff  weavers  from  Meaux,  potters 
from  Delft,  shipwrights  from  Havre  and  Dieppe,  silk  manu- 
facturers from  Lyons  and  Tours,  paper  manufacturers  from 
Bordeaux  and  Auvergne,  woollen  manufacturers  from  Sedan, 
and'  tanners  from  the  Touraine,  were  all  plying  their  industries 
in  England.  The  manufactures  of  silk,  damask,  velvet,  cam- 
bric and  baize,  of  the  finer  kinds  of  cloth  and  paper,  of  pen- 
dulum clocks,  mathematical  instruments,  felt  hats,  toys, 
crystal  and  plate  glass,  all  owe  their  origin  in  England  wholly 
or  chiefly  to  Protestant  refugees,  who  also  laid  the  foundation 
of  scientific  gardening,  introduced  numerous  flowers  and  vege- 
tables that  had  before  been  unknown,  and  improved  almost 
every  industry  that  was  indigenous  to  the  soil.* 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  while  the  balance  of  political  and  military  power  in 
Europe  was  still  clearly  on  the  side  of  Catholicism,  the  su- 
premacy of  industry  was  as  decidedly  on  the  side  of  Pro- 
testantism. It  was  computed  that  Great  Britain,  Holland, 
Denmark,  Sweden,  Norway,  the  Hanseatic  towns,  and  the 
Protestant  parts  of  Germany,  possessed  between  them  three- 
fourths  of  the  commerce  of  the  world  ;^  while  in  France  itself, 
before  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  an  extraordinary 
proportion  of  the  national  industry  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Huguenots.    The  immigration  of  these  latter  into  England  had 

'  The    fullest    account    of     the  Smiles'  two  interesting  volumes  on 

refugee    settlements    and    industry  The  Huguenots,  and  the  notices  of  the 

is  to  be  found  in  Southerden  Burn's  Refugee  Manufactures,  in  Macpher- 

very  valuable  Hist,  of  the  Protestant  son's  Annals  of  Commerce. 

Itefii^ees  in  Enghind.  See,too,Weiss"s  -Patty's   Political  Arithmetic,  p. 

Hist,    dcs    lUfugies    Frangais,    Mr.  118. 


en.  n.  GROWING  PEOSPERITY.  209 

the  natural  effect  of  strengthening  the  Whig  party  both  in 
numbers  and  in  zeal.^  The  industrial  classes,  who  formed  the 
bulk  of  the  party,  were  largely  increased.  The  anti-Gallican 
and  anti-Papal  enthusiasms  were  intensified  by  great  personal 
wrongs.  The  Dissenting  or  Low  Church  interest  obtained  a 
great  accession  of  power  from  the  presence  of  a  large  body  of 
men  educated  in  non-episcopal  churches  ;  and  the  great  Whig 
maxim,  that  a  government  should  accord  perfect  toleration 
to  all  Protestant  sects,  derived  a  new  strength  from  the 
manifest  material  benefits  it  produced. 

The  influence  of  the  industrial  classes  had  for  a  long  time 
been  steadily  increasing,  with  the  accumidation  of  industrial 
wealth.  The  reigns  of  the  Stuarts,  though  in  their  political 
aspects  they  were  in  many  respects  chequered  or  disastrous, 
formed  a  period  of  almost  uninterrupted  material  prosperity, 
the  more  striking  because  it  was  not  due  to  any  of  those  great 
mechanical  inventions  which  in  the  present  century  have 
suddenly  revolutionised  great  departments  of  industry.  The 
progress  was  strictly  normal.  It  may  be  ascribed  to  the  recla- 
mation of  waste  lands,  to  the  extension  and  development  of 
the  colonies,  to  the  freedom  of  the  country  for  a  long  period 
from  any  serious  land  war.  It  was  noticed,  as  a  remark- 
able sign  of  the  democratic  spirit  that  followed  the  Common- 
wealth, that  country  gentlemen  in  England  had  begun  to 
bind  their  sons  as  apprentices  to  merchants,-  and  also,  that 
about  the  same  time  the  desire  to  obtain  large  portions  in 
marriage  led  to  alliances  between  the  aristocracy  and  the 
merchants.  Sir  W.  Temple,  writing  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  says : — '  I  think  I  remember  within  less 

'  Tliug    Atterbury    very    bitterly  So  Pope — 

wrote  :  '  I  scarce  ever  knew  a  foreigner  Boastful  and  rough  your  first  son  is  a  squire, 

settled  in  England,  whether  of  Dutch,  '^'^"^  "«^-^'  »  tradesman  meek  and  much  a  Uar. 

,,                  T-.           1      T,^    T                  fn      1  •    1  — Moral  £.ssaus,^.  I. 
German,  Irench,  Italian,  or   Turkish 

growth,   but   became   a   Whig  in   a  In  a  pamphlet  published  in  1722 

little  time  after  mixing  with  us.' —  called  *  The  danger  of  the  Church  and 

'English  Advice  to  the   Freeholders  Kingdom  from  Foi-eigners  considered,' 

of   England '  (1714),  Somers's  Tracts,  it  is  said,  '  Now  the  greatest  gentle- 

xiii.  p.  537.  men  affect  to  make  their  junior  sons 

^  See  Hume's   Hist,   of  England,  Turkey    merchants,   and    while    the 

ch.  Ixii.  diligent  son    is    getting    an    estate 
VOL.  I. 


210  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

than  fifty  years,  tlie  first  noble  families  that  married  into  the 
city  for  downright  money,  and  thereby  introduced  by  degrees 
this  public  grievance  which  has  since  ruined  so  many  estates 
by  the  necessity  of  giving  good  portions  to  daughters.'  ^  The 
increase  of  wealth  was  abundantly  attested  by  all  the  best 
authorities.  Thus  Sir  Josiah  Child,  who  published  his  well- 
known  '  Discourse  on  Trade'  in  1670,  assures  us  that  both  the 
merchants  and  shipping  in  England  had  doubled  in  twenty 
years.  Petty,  in  his  '  Political  Arithmetic,'  which  was  published 
a  few  years  later,  declared  that  within  forty  years  the  value  of 
the  houses  of  London  had  doubled,  while  most  of  the  leading 
provincial  towns  had  largely  increased,  that  the  royal  navy 
had  tripled  or  quadrupled,  that  the  coal-shipping  of  New- 
castle had  quadrupled,  that  the  value  of  the  customs  had 
tripled,  that  the  postage  of  letters  had  multiplied  twenty- 
fold,  and  that,  through  the  great  increase  of  money,  the  natural 
rate  of  interest  had  fallen  from  eight  to  six  per  cent.  Davenant, 
who  examined  with  great  care  the  material  condition  of  the 
country  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  supplies  much  evidence 
to  the  same  effect.  He  tells  us  that  the  tonnage  of  the 
merchant  shipping  in  1 688  was  nearly  double  of  what  it  had 
been  in  1666  ;  that  the  royal  navy  had  increased  from  62,594 
tons  to  101,032  tons;  that  the  customs,  which  in  1666  were 
farmed  out  for  390,000L  a  year,  had  in  the  last  seventeen 
years  yielded  on  an  average  555,7521.  In  a  work  published 
in  1698,  he  calculated  that  the  general  rental  of  England 
had  risen,  since  the  beginning  of  the  century,  from  6,000,000^. 
to  14,00O,000L,  and  the  purchasing  value  of  the  land  from 
72,000,000^.  to  252,000,000^.2  The  whole  income  of  the 
country  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  was  estimated  at  about 
43,500,000^.3 

by  foreign  traffic,  the  wise  father  at  171.      Davenant's   Discourses  on  the 

home  employs  his  talent  in  railing  at  Public  Revenue  and  Trade  of  England. 

foreigners.'— See  Southerden   Burn's  Maepherson's  J.rt/j«&  o/"  fowwerce,  ii. 

Hist,  of  Protestant  Refugees,  p.  13.  629-630. 

*  Temple's  Miscellames.  *  Gregory  King's  Conclusions  upon 

^  Child's     Discourse     on     Trade.  the  State  of  England,  §  vi. 

Petty 's  Political  Arithmetic,  pp.  170- 


CM.  II.  GROWING  PROSPERITY.  211 

Of  the  manufactures,  the  most  important  were  still  those 
of  wool,  which  had  already  become  famous  under  the  Tudors, 
and  were  scattered  througli  the  valleys  of  the  Thames  and 
Severn,  through  East  Norfolk,  South  Lancashire,  Yorkshire, 
and  Westmoreland.  The  iron  and  hardware  manufactures  of 
Sheffield  and  Birmingham  were  already  in  existence,  and  it 
was  noticed  that  in  the  later  Stuart  reigns  industry  was  not 
only  largely  increased,  but  was  also  more  and  more  concen- 
trated in  a  few  great  centres.'  The  prosperity  of  the  country 
was  very  serio\isly  retarded  by  the  war  that  followed  the 
Revolution,  but  it  resumed  its  progressive  march  after  the 
Peace  of  Ryswick,  and  was  accelerated  by  the  foundation 
of  the  Bank  of  England,  which  greatly  assisted  credit;  by 
the  renovation  of  the  coin,  which  gave  a  new  stimulus  to 
every  branch  of  industry;  and,  perhaps,  also  by  the  partial 
abolition  of  two  considerable  trade  monopolies.  The  African 
trade,  though  it  had  been  largely  pursued  by  interlopers,  was 
from  the  early  Stuart  reigns  legally  a  monopoly;  but  in  1698 
all  English  subjects  were  allowed  to  trade,  without  restriction, 
in  negroes,  gold,  and  silver ;  and  the  other  branches  of  the 
African  trade  were  also  opened  to  them,  provided  they  paid  to 
the  Company  a  duty  of  five  per  cent,  on  redwood,  and  of  ten 
per  cent,  on  other  goods.  The  Eussian  trade  had  been  accorded 
to  some  London  adventurers,  who,  in  the  reign  of  Mary,  when 
seeking  for  a  north-west  passage  to  China,  had  discovered 
Archangel,  and  it  had  been  confirmed  to  their  successors  by 
an  Act  of  Elizabeth.  The  Company,  however,  proved  too 
limited  and  feeble  to  contend  with  the  rivalry  of  the  Dutch, 
and  it  was  accordingly  enacted,  in  1699,  that  all  English 
subjects  might  belong  to  it  on  the  payment  of  bl."^  At  the 
close  of  the  reign  of  William,  a  return  of  the  mercantile  navy 
of  England  was  drawn  up  by  the  Commissioners  of  Customs, 
from  which  it  appears  that  the  number  of  vessels  belonging  to 
all  the  English  ports  was  then  3,281,  measuring  261,222  tons, 
and  employing  27,196  men.     Of  these  vessels  560  belonged  to 

'  Baines'  Hist,  of  Liverpool,  2.")3  2.')'.).         *  Macpherson. 


212  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

London,  165  to  Bristol,  and  143  to  Yarmouth.'  The  costly 
wars  of  Anne,  thougli  they  for  a  time  depressed,  did  not  per- 
manently injure,  industry.  The  lowest  point  in  this  rei^ 
appears  to  have  been  in  1705,  when  the  value  of  the  exports 
was  only  5,308,966^.;  but  in  1713,  1714,  and  1715,  the  three 
years  which  immediately  followed  the  peace,  the  average  value 
was  7,696,573^.,  which  exceeded  by  nearly  a  million  sterling  the 
amount  in  the  preceding  peace.^ 

Many  of  these  figures  can,  of  course,  only  pretend  to  an 
approximate  accuracy.  All  of  them  appear  very  small  when 
compared  with  the  gigantic  dimensions  of  modern  commerce, 
but  they  are  sufficient  to  show  that  the  condition  of  England 
was  a  healthy  and  a  progressive  one,  and  that  the  commercial 
classes  were  steadily  rising  in  importance.  One  result  of  this 
increasing  prosperity  must,  indeed,  be  looked  upon  with  very 
mingled  feelings.  I  mean  the  rapidly  accelerated  disappearance 
of  the  yeomanry  class.  The  main  causes  of  the  destruction  of 
this  most  useful  element  of  English  country  life  are  very 
evident.  The  system  of  primogeniture,  settlements,  and  entails, 
as  well  as  the  maze  of  expensive  intricacies  with  which  English 
law  has  encumbered  the  transfer  of  land,  by  diminishing  greatly 
the  amoimt  which  is  brought  to  market,  have  given  it  an  im- 
natural  and  monopoly  price,  which  is  still  further  increased  by 
the  social  distinction  its  possession  confers,  and  by  the  country 
tastes  which  make  its  acquisition  an  object  of  great  desire  to 
the  rich.  Under  such  circumstances  the  continued  existence 
of  a  large  class  of  small  proprietors  was  impossible.  Men  of 
narrow  means  could  not  afford  to  purchase  land.  Small  land- 
owners had  the  strongest  inducement  to  sell.  But  the  impulse 
was  greatly  strengthened  when  the  development  of  commercial 
and  manufacturing  industry  multiplied  the  paths  to  wealth.  On 
the  one  hand,  the  number  of  large  fortunes  competing  in  the 
land  market  was  increased.  On  the  other  hand,  numerous 
additional  facilities  were  furnished  for  investing  small  capitals 

'  Macpherson's    AmiaU    of    Com-  -  Craik's  Hid.    of    Commerce,  ii. 

vierce,  ii.  719.  163. 


1 


CH.  n.  THE  GREAT  TOWNS.  213 

in  more  lucrative  employraents  than  agriculture.  The  enclosure 
of  common  land,  rendering  the  position  of  the  small  yeoman 
more  difficult,  aggravated  the  tendency,  and  the  result  was  a 
very  considerable  transfer  of  energy  from  the  country  to  the 
towms.  The  feebler  members  of  the  yeomanry  sank  gradually 
into  tenants  or  labourers,  while  the  more  ambitious  and  enter- 
prising were  rapidly  absorbed  in  industrial  life.' 

Of  the  population  of  the  great  manufacturing  and  trading 
towns,  we  are,  imfortunately,  unable  to  speak  with  much 
precision.  No  official  census  of  the  population  of  England  was 
made  till  1801,  and  the  computations  that  were  based  on  the 
returns  of  births  and  deaths,  and  of  the  hearth-money,  though 
far  from  valueless,  are  too  vague  and  too  conflicting  to  be 
positively  relied  on.  According  to  the  estimates  we  possess, 
the  population  of  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  appears  to  have  been  somewhat  under  6,000,000,^  of 
whom  about  a  tenth  part  were  concentrated  in  London.  Next 
to  London,  but  next  at  a  great  interval,  was  Bristol,  which  re- 
tained its  position  as  the  second  city  in  England  till  after  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  owed  its  wealth  chiefly 
to  its  large  trade  with  the  American  colonies.  Its  population 
under  Charles  IL  is  said  to  have  been  29,000,  and  in  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  rather  more  than  90,000.^  Norwich, 
which  was  an  old  resort  of  Flemish  refugees,  and  was  famous 
during  many  generations  for  its  manufacture  of  worsted  and 

•  On  this  subject  much  vaUiable  adopting  the  same  basis  of  calcula- 
evidence  has  hitcly  been  collect(>d  tion,  estimated  it  in  1695  at  not 
in  Thornton's  Over  Population,. Cliff.  quite  8,000,000.  Gregory  King- com- 
Leslies   Zand    Systems    of   Ireland,  putcd  it  in  1690  at  nearly  5,500,000 

.England,  and  the   Continent,  Nasse's  and  Mr.  Einlaison,  who  investigated 

Unsay  on  Land  Tenures,  and  in  some  the    subject    very    minutely  in   the 

of    the     papers     published     by    the  present   century,  concluded   that  at 

Cobden  Club.  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 

*  The  estimates,  as  might  be  ex-  the  population  of  England  was  a 
pected,  are  A-erj'  various.  Chief-  little  under  5,200,000.  See  the  differ- 
Justice  Hale  in  1670  computed  the  ent  estimates  collected  in  Macpher- 
population  of  England  at  at  least  son's  Annals  of  Commerce,  ii.  68,  634, 
6,000,000.  In  168!)  another  authority,  674,  iii,  134,  and  in  Macaulay's  Hixt. 
who  reckoned  the  large  number  of  ch.  iii. 

six  persons  for  every  house,  fixed  the  '  Macpherson,  iii.  322-323. 

population  at  7,380,000.     Davenant, 


214  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

other  woollen  works,  as  well  as  for  its  supply  of  fuller's  earth, 
long  ranked  third  amoug  English  cities.  Its  population  in 
1693  was  between  28,000  and  29,000,  and  it  was  believed  to 
have  nearly  or  quite  doubled  by  1760.'  IManchester  had  been 
the  seat  of  a  woollen  manufacture  under  the  Tudors,  and  a 
book  published  in  1641  mentions  that  cotton  was  also  worked 
there,  which  appears  to  be  the  earliest  record  of  that  industry 
in  England.  It  is  said  to  have  contained  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century  less  than  6,000  inhabitants,  but  if  so  it 
must  have  increased  with  extraordinary  rapidity  in  the  first  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  for  Defoe,  in  his  '  Tour  through  Great 
Britain,'  which  was  published  in  1727,  estimates  the  population 
of  the  city  and  suburbs  at  not  less  than  50,000.  According  to 
another  estimate,  the  town  alone  contained  from  40,000  to 
45,000  persons  in  1760,^^  at  which  date  the  population  of  Bir- 
mingham was  believed  to  have  been  about  30,000,  and  that  of 
Newcastle,  including  the  suburbs,  about  40,000.^  Liverpool  was 
somewhat  slower  in  emerging  into  greatness.  It  was  a  village 
of  much  antiquity,  consisted  in  1565  of  138  houses  or  cabins, 
derived  some  importance  from  the  fire  and  the  plague,  which 
induced  many  merchants  to  abandon  London,  and  gradually  be- 
came a  centre  of  commerce  for  the  new  colonies  in  the  West 
Indies  and  for  America.  It  was  assisted  also  by  the  reclama- 
tion of  great  tracts  of  waste  lands,  which  stimulated  the  corn 
trade,  and  by  the  growth  of  Manchester  and  other  manufactur- 
ing towns  in  its  neighbourhood.  It  is  curious,  however,  to 
notice  that  it  was  only  in  1699  that  it  was  thought  sufficiently 
important  to  form  a  parish  to  itself,  and  that  its  first  dock  was 
not  built  before  1709.  Its  population  in  1700  is  believed  to 
have  been  slightly  under  6,000,  but  to  have  increased  in  the 
course  of  the  next  half-century  to  about  30,000.  Liverpool 
had  by  this  time  become  indisputably  the  third  port  in  the 
kingdom,  and  it  was  soon  prominent  beyond  all  others  in  the 

'  Macaulay,  ch.  iii.     Macpherson,  Hist,  of  the  Cotton  Trade,  pp.  99-100. 

iii.  323.  Blomefield's  Hist,  of  Norfolli,  Defoe's   Toiir,  iii.  210.     Whittaker's 

vol.  ii.  Hist,  of  Manchester. 

2  Curry's  Hist,   of  LaJicashire,  i.  ^  Macpherson,  iii.  321-325. 

276.  Macpherson, iii.  136, 323.  Baines' 


CH.  n.  THE  FUNDED   INTEREST.  215 

slave  trade.'  The  whole  population  of  Lancashire  was  estimated 
at  166,200  in  1700,  and  at  297,400  in  1750.*  At  the  time  of 
the  census  of  1871  it  exceeded  2,800,000. 

In  addition  to  the  other  causes  which  united  the  industrial 
classes  with  the  WTiigs  we  must  reckon  the  funded  system  and 
tlie  creation  of  the  great  mercantile  companies  established  after 
the  Eevolution.  The  national  debt,  which  at  the  accession  of 
William  had  been  very  inconsiderable,  had  increased  during  his 
reign  and  during  the  reign  of  his  successor  with  a  portentous 
rapidity.  Incurred  as  it  was  in  a  struggle  against  the  Power 
that  was  in  alliance  with  the  Pretender,  it  was  more  than 
doubtful  whether  the  interest  of  the  debt  would  be  paid  if 
the  Government  of  the  Eevolution  were  overthrown,  and 
thus  an  immense  proportion  of  the  capitalists  had  the  strongest 
personal  reasons  for  supporting  the  Grovernment.  In  this 
manner  the  national  debt,  which  was  in  some  respects  very 
injurious  to  the  country,  was  eminently  advantageous  to  the 
WTiigs.  Very  similar  considerations  apply  to  the  Bank  of 
England  and  to  the  new  East  India  Company.  These  great 
corporations  exercised  an  influence  which  extended  to  every 
city  in  the  kingdom,  and  affected,  directly  or  indirectly,  almost 
every  great  mercantile  fortune.  Both  of  them  were  created  by 
the  Whig  Government.  Both  of  them  obtained  their  privileges 
by  the  loan  of  large  sums  to  that  Government,  and  both  of 
them  depended  for  their  very  existence  on  the  regular  payment 
of  the  interest. 

In  this  manner  a  great  Whig  interest  was  artificially  cre- 
ated, which  was  attached  by  the  closest  ties  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Eevolution  and  to  the  House  of  Brunswick.  In 
"1707,  at  the  news  of  the  intended  invasion  by  the  Pretender, 

'  Baines'  Iligt.  of  Liverpool.     Pic-  from  the  petition  of  the  Liverpool 

ion's  Memorials  of  Liverpool.    Corry's  corporation  in   1G99    for  making  a 

Ifist.    of   Lancaxhire.     Macpherson's  new  church  there,  that  they  already 

Annals  of  Commerce,  iii.   135.     Der-  claimed  for  Liverpool  the  position  of 

rick's  Letters  from  Liverpool.    See  too  the    third    port    of    the     trade    of 

the  voyage  of  Gonzales  (a  Portuguese)  England.     See  Picton,  i.  145-146. 
to   England   and   Scotland,  in  1730,  "^  Corry's  Hist,  of  Lancashire,i.  265. 

Pinkerton's  Voi/ages,  ii.  3d.  It  appears 


21 6  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

the  price  of  stocks  at  once  fell  fourteen  or  fifteen  per  cent.^  In 
1710,  when  the  Queen  resolved  to  dismiss  the  Whig  ministry 
of  Godolphin,  the  Bank  of  England  sent  a  formal  deputation 
to  her  to  deprecate  the  change.^  The  accession  of  the  Harley 
ministry,  though  it  promised  a  return  of  peace,  was  at  once 
followed  by  a  depreciation  of  the  funds,  which  continued  till 
Harley,  following  in  the  steps  of  his  predecessors,  created  the 
South  Sea  Company,  on  tlie  same  principle  as  the  great  Whig 
corporations,  by  granting  important  mercantile  privileges  to  a 
portion  of  the  national  creditors.^  As  long  as  Harley  retained 
his  ascendancy  the  national  credit  was  not  seriously  imperilled, 
but  when  Bolingbroke  succeeded  in  displacing  him,  when  the  reins 
of  power  seemed  passing  into  Jacobite  hands,  a  panic  immediately 
ensued.  The  funds,  as  we  have  seen,  rose  when  the  illness  of  the 
Queen  Avas  followed  by  a  report  of  her  death  ;  they  fell  at  a  false 
rumour  of  her  recovery ;  they  rose  again  when  her  sudden  death 
disconcerted  the  Jacobite  intrigues/  The  Jacobites,  on  the 
other  hand,  looked  forward  to  the  ruin  of  the  Bank  as  the  most 
probable  of  all  means  of  accomplishing  their  designs.^  Had 
Bolingbroke  continued  in  power,  it  is  possible  that  the  funds 
would  have  been  taxed,  and  probable  that  measures  would  have 
been  taken  seriously  to  restrict  the  powers  of  the  great  mercan- 
tile companies,  and  there  were  great  fears  that  they  might  be 
wholly  subverted.^  The  country  gentry  looked  with  feelings  of 
the  keenest  jealousy  on  the  new  political  power  which  was 
arising,  and  contrasted  bitterly  the  exemption  of  the  fund- 
holder  from  taxation  with  the  burdens  imposed  upon  land. 
'The  proprietor  of  the  land,'  it  was  said,  'and  the  merchant 
who  brought  riches  home  by  the  returns  of  foreign  trade,  had 
during  two  wars  borne  the  whole  immense  load  of  the  national 
expenses  ;  while  the  lender  of  money,  who  added  nothing  to  the 
common  stock,  throve  by  the  public  calamity,  and  contributed 

'  Francis'   Hist,   of  the   Banh   of  "  Calamy's  Life,  ii.  292. 

England,  i.  85.  s  See        Macpherson's        Original 

^  Pari.  Hist.  vi.  906-907.  Papers,  ii.  211-212. 

*  Macpherson's    Annals    of    Com-  «  See   a    remarkable    passage    in 

mercc,   iii.    17-21.     Somers'    Tracts,  Bolingbroke's  Letter  to  Windham. 
xiii.  35. 


CH.  II.  THE  FUNDED  INTEREST.  217 

not  a  mite  to  the  public  charge.'  ^  Nor  was  this  all.  It  was  a 
fundamental  maxim  of  the  Tory  party  that  '  Law  in  a  free 
country  is  or  ought  to  be  the  determination  of  the  majority  of 
those  who  have  property  in  land ; '  ^  that  '  the  right  strength  of 
this  kingdom  depends  upon  the  land,  which  is  infinitely  supe- 
rior and  ought  mucli  more  to  be  regarded  than  our  concerns  in 
trade.' ^  The  Landed  Property  Qualification  Act  of  1712  was 
intended  to  assert  this  principle,  and  it  was  elicited  by  the 
manifest  fact  that  in  the  latter  days  of  William,  and  still  more 
in  the  reign  of  Anne,  the  moneyed  was,  in  a  great  measure, 
superseding  the  landed  interest.  '  Power,'  said  Swift,  '  which, 
according  to  an  old  maxim,  was  used  to  follow  land,  is  now 
gone  over  to  money.' ^  Individual  capitalists,  and  still  more 
the  two  great  corporations,  descended  into  the  political  arena, 
wrested  boroughs,  by  sheer  corruption,  from  the  landlords  who 
had  for  generations  controlled  them,  and  strained  every  nerve 
to  acquire  the  political  influence  wliich  was  essential  to  the 
fiecurity  of  their  property.  In  1701  there  had  been  grave 
inquiries  in  Parliament  about  the  lavish  sums  whicli  the  East 
India  Company  expended  among  tlie  Members,-^  and  the  increas- 
ing corruption  at  elections  was  universally  recognised.  '  It  is 
said,'  Vrote  one  high  authority,  '  tliat  several  persons,  utter 
strangers  in  the  counties  to  which  they  went,  have  made  a  pro- 
gress throughout  England,  endeavouring,  by  very  large  sums, 
to  get  themselves  elected.  ...  It  is  said  that  there  are 
known  brokers  who  have  tried  to  stock-job  elections  upon  the 
Exchange,  and  that  for  many  boroughs  there  was  a  stated 
price.  .  .  .     Some    person?,  having  considerable  stocks  in  the 

^  BolinghTokc's Letter tomndJtam.  years  old,  of  settinj^  up  a  moneyed 

'  Swift.  interest  in  opposition  to  the  landed — 

'  Davenant,   iii.    328.     Thus,  too,  for  I  conceived  there  could  not  be  a 

Defoe  said  tliat  in  case  of  the  dis-  truer  maxim  in  our  Government  than 

solution  of   the   Government,  power  this  :  that  the  possessors  of  the  soil 

devolves  on  the  freeholders,  '  who  are  are  the  best  judges  of  what  is  for  the 

the  proper  owners  of  the  country.'    -  advantage  of  the  kingdom.   If  others 

Wilson's  Life  of  Defoe,  i.  425.  had  thought  tlie  same  way,  funds  of 

*  Examiner,  Xo.  xiii.     In  one  of  credit  and  Soulh  Sea  projects  would 

his  private   letters    (Jan.    1721),  he  neither  have  been  felt  nor  heard  of.' 

says,  'I  have  ever  abominated  that  *  Burnefs  Own  Times,  ii.  258-259. 

scheme  of  politics,  now  about  thirty 


218  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

Bank  of  England  and  in  the  new  East  India  Company,  are 
more  particularly  charged  with  these  facts.'  ^  'The  mis- 
chievous consequence,'  wrote  Bolingbroke,  'which  had  been 
foreseen  and  foretold  too  at  the  establishment  of  these  corpora- 
tions, appeared  visibly.  The  country  gentlemen  were  vexed, 
put  to  great  expenses,  and  even  baffled  by  them  at  their 
elections ;  and  among  the  Members  of  every  Parliament  num- 
bers were  immediately  or  indirectly  under  their  influence.'^ 
'  Boroughs,'  said  a  third  writer,  '  are  rated  in  the  Eoyal 
Exchange  like  stocks  and  tallies  ;  the  price  of  a  vote  is  as  well 
known  as  of  an  acre  of  land,  and  it  is  no  secret  who  are  the 
moneyed  men,  and  consequently  the  best  customers.'* 

Under  all  these  circumstances  the  political  influence  of  the 
industrial  and  moneyed  classes  was  greatly  increased  by  the 
Eevolution.  They  have  been  the  steady  supporters  of  English 
.liberty,  the  steady  advocates  of  religious  toleration  within  the 
limits  of  the  Protestant  creed.  To  them,  more  than  to  any 
other  class,  may  be  ascribed  the  tempered  energy,  the  dislike 
to  abstractions  and  theories,  the  eminently  practical  spirit  so 
characteristic  of  English  political  life ;  and  their  influence  has 
been  especially  useful  in  moderating  the  love  of  adventure  and 
extravagance  common  to  pure  aristocracies.  On  the  other  hand_, 
the  mercantile  theory,  which  governed  commercial  legislation 
till  after  the  writings  of  Hume,  planted  a  new  and  powerful 
principle  of  international  jealousy  in  European  politics.  The 
narrow  spirit  of  commercial  monopoly  crushed  the  rising 
industry  of  Ireland,  and  trammelled  the  industry  of  the  colo- 
nies ;  and  the  desire  of  the  moneyed  classes  to  acquire  political 
power  at  the  expense  of  the  country  gentlemen  was  the  first 
and  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  that  political  corruption  which 
soon  overspread  the  whole  system  of  parliamentary  govern- 
ment. 

'  Davenant    on    the    Balance    of  vol.  xiii.     See,  too,   Bolingbroke  on 

Pon-er.  the  Study  of  History,  Letter  ii.     The 

^  Letter  to  Windham.  History   of  the  Last  Four    Years  of 

'  See  the  very  brilliant  pamphlet  Queen    Anne,     ascribed    to     Swift. 

called  '  English  Advice  to  the  Free-  Wilson's  Life  of  Befoe,  i.  340-341. 

holders  of  England.'— Somers'  Tracts, 


CH.  II.  THE   NONCONFORMISTS.  219 

The  Protestant  Nonconformists  formed  the  third  consider- 
able branch  of  the  Whig  party  ;  but  the  reaction  which  followed 
the  Eestoration,  the  persecuting  laws  of  the  Stuarts,  and  the 
gradual  diminution  of  the  yeomanry  had  reduced  both  their 
numbers  and  their  influence.     In  a  very  imperfect  return  made 
to  the  Government  in  1689  those  in  England  and  "NVales  were 
estimated  at  about  110,000,'  and,  according  to  a  paper  in  the 
possession  of  William,  among  the  freeholders  of  the  kingdom 
the   proportion    of    Protestant  Nonconformists    and    Catholics 
united  was  not  quite  1  to  22.^     The  strength  of  the  Dissenters 
lay  among  the  tradesmen  of  the  towns  and  among  seafaring 
men ; '   they  reckoned  among  their  number  many  rich  mer- 
chants and  capitalists,  and  some  of  them,  as  we  have  seen, 
attained  the  highest  municipal  dignity.     They  could  also  boast 
of  a  very  considerable  intellectual  eminence.     Baxter,  Howe, 
Calamy,  and  Bunyan  would  have  done  honour  to  any  Church. 
The  writings  of  Matthew  Henry  are  even  now  the  favourite 
Scripture  commentaries  of  thousands  ;  and  Defoe,  if  not  quite 
the  greatest,  was  certainly  the  most  versatile  and  prolific  of 
that  brilliant  group  of  political  writers  who   have  made  the 
reign  of  Anne   so   remarkable    in  literature.     The  Catholics, 
Unitarians,  Socinians,  and  all  who,  without  joining  these  bodies, 
spoke  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  or  against  the  super- 
natural origin  of  Christianity,  continued  after  the  Eevolution 
subject  to  penal  laws  which,  if  they  had  been  strictly  enforced, 
would   have    amounted   to    absolute   proscription ;    but    other 
Dissenters  were  exempted,  on  certain  conditions,  from  their 
provisions   by    the   Toleration    Act.      They   were    allowed   to 
attend  their  own  places  of  w^orship,  and  were  protected  by  law 
from  all  disturbance,  provided   they  took  the  oaths  of  alle- 
giance and  supremacy  and  subscribed  the  declaration  against 
transubstantiation,    provided    their   congregations    were   duly 

'  See    Skeats'   Hint,   of  the  Free  below  the  truth. 
Cliurches  of  England,  p.  151.     This  -  Dalrymple'a    Memoirs,    part    ii. 

return  reckons  the  whole  population  book  i.  append, 
of     England    and    Wales    as     only  '  Davenant's  Works,  iv.  411. 

2,600,000,    which     is     certainly    far 


220  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

registered  in  the  Court  of  the  Bishop  or  Archdeacon  or  at 
the  County  Sessions,  and  provided  also  the  doors  of  their  meet- 
ing-houses remained  unlocked  and  unbarred.  Their  ministers, 
however,  were  compelled  to  subscribe  the  doctrinal  portion 
of  the  Anglican  Articles,  with  the  exception  of  the  Baptists, 
who  were  exempted  from  the  article  relating  to  infant  baptism. 
The  Quakers,  who  objected  to  all  oaths,  and  to  all  subscrip- 
tions to  human  formularies,  were  only  required  to  affirm  their 
adhesion  to  the  Grovernment,  to  abjure  transubstantiation,  and 
to  profess  their  belief  in  the  Trinity  and  in  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible. 

This  measure  undoubtedly  conferred  a  great  practical 
advantage  upon  the  Nonconformists,  though  it  is  hardly,  I 
think,  deserving  of  the  enthusiasm  that  has  been  bestowed 
on  it.  It  is,  indeed,  extremely  doubtful  whether  the  cause  of 
religious  liberty  in  England  owes  anything  to  the  Revolution ; 
for  James,  stupid  and  bigoted  as  he  was,  had  at  least  quite 
sufficient  intelligence  to  perceive  that  he  could  only  relieve  the 
small  Catholic  minority  by  associating  their  cause  with  that  of 
the  much  larger  body  of  Protestant  dissidents,  while  those  who 
opposed  the  royal  designs  would  have  been  almost  inevitably 
driven  to  compete  by  large  concessions  for  the  alliance  of  the 
Dissenters.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  Act  of  William  was 
technically  described  only  as  '  an  Act  of  Indulgence,'  suspending 
in  certain  cases  the  operation  of  laws  which  still  remained  upon 
the  Statute  Book,  and  thus  leaving  the  Dissenters,  more  or  less, 
under  the  stigma  of  the  law.  They  were  still  excluded  from  the 
universities,  they  could  be  married  only  according  to  the  Angli- 
can ceremony,  and  the  Corporation  and  Test  Acts  prevented 
them  from  entering  corporations  and  public  offices  without 
receiving  the  Sacrament  according  to  the  Anglican  rite.  Wil- 
liam earnestly  desired  complete  religious  toleration,  if  not 
equality,  among  Protestants  ;  but  such  a  policy,  when  the  fear 
of  a  Catholic  sovereign  was  removed,  was  impossible.  Measures 
to  abolish  the  sacramental  test,  or  to  make  the  reception  of 
the  Sacrament  in  any  Protestant  form  a  sufficient  test,  were 


oi.  II.  THE    NONCONFORMISTS.  221 

introduced  and  defeated.  Another  measure,  which  the  Iving 
was  very  anxious  to  carry,  was  the  Comprehension  Bill,  the 
object  of  which  was,  by  slight  alterations  in  the  Anglican 
Liturgy,  by  making  optional  the  surplice,  the  practice  of 
kneeling  at  one  Sacrament,  the  intervention  of  sponsors  and  the 
employment  of  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  the  other,  and  by  sub- 
stituting for  subscription  to  the  Articles  a  general  declaration 
that  the  Anglican  worship  and  doctrine  contain  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation,  to  remove  the  objections  of  the  great 
majority  of  the  Dissenters,  and  to  reunite  tliem  to  the  Church. 
According  to  the  first  cast  of  this  Bill,  Presbyterian  ordination 
was  recognised  as  valid,  but  only  after  the  imposition  of  the 
bishop's  hands;  and  by  this  restriction  the  Eomish  or  sacer- 
dotal element  which  runs  through  the  English  Church  would 
have  been  preserved.  Sectarian  spirit,  however,  on  both  sides 
was  opposed  to  the  measui-e.  Politicians  of  all  shades  saw  that 
an  alteration  in  the  forms  and  Liturgy  of  the  Church  would 
give  an  increased  importance  to  the  Nonjuror  schism.  The  great 
majority  of  the  clergy  were  violently  opposed  to  all  overtures  to 
the  Dissenters.  Many  of  the  Dissenters  dreaded  a  Bill  which, 
while  it  would  certainly  not  extinguish  Dissent,  would  as  cer- 
tainly divide  and  dislocate  the  Nonconformist  body,  impo- 
verish many  of  its  ministers,  and  lower  the  position  of  almost 
all ;  while  many  Whigs  feared  that  the  transfer  of  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans  to  the  Established 
Chui'ch  would  incline  the  balance  of  power  still  more  to  the 
side  of  despotism.  The  opposition  grew  stronger  and  stronger, 
and  the  Bill  was  at  last  referred  to  Convocation  and  speedily 
crushed. 

One  other  measure  had  been  carried  in  this  reign  which  \ 
was  of  considerable  importance,  as  securing  the  position  of  the 
Quakers.  This  eccentric,  but,  in  many  respects,  most  admir- 
able sect  will  always  be  remembered  in  history  for  its  noble 
services  to  the  causes  of  religious  tolerance  and  of  the  abolition 
of  slavery ;  and  its  members,  in  these  latter  days,  have  been 
chiefly   distinguished  for  their  singular  benevolence,  for   the 


222  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  en.  n. 

quaint,  quiet  decorum  of  their  manners,  and  for  their  sys- 
tematic but  very  harmless  defiance,  in  many  small  matters  of 
conduct  and  of  belief,  of  what  appear  to  the  outer  world  to  be 
the  dictates  of  common  sense.  In  spite  of  much  atrocious 
persecution,  they  had  multiplied  greatly  in  the  closing  years  of 
the  Stuarts,  and  as  soon  as  the  Toleration  Act  was  passed 
England  was  studded  with  their  meeting-houses.  Between 
1688  and  1690,  licences  were  taken  out  for  131  new  temporary 
and  108  new  permanent  places  of  worship  for  the  society,  64 
being  in  Lancashire.'  The  fanaticism  which  had  led  some  of 
the  first  apostles  of  the  sect  to  walk  naked,  or  almost  naked, 
through  the  streets,  to  interrupt  the  services  in  the  churches, 
and  to  rebuke  the  judges  and  magistrates  in  the  courts,  had 
gradually  subsided.  An  austere  morality,  and  a  tone  of  manners 
which  rendered  impossible  most  of  the  forms  of  wasteful, 
luxurious,  and  ostentatious  expenditure,  speedily  raised  the 
society  to  wealth.  It  had  produced  a  great  statesman  in  Penn, 
a  great  writer  in  Barclay,  a  considerable  scholar  in  George 
Keith,  and  it  was  now  a  large  and  well-organised  body.  Many 
of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Quakers  were  of  a  kind  which 
gave  little  or  no  trouble  to  the  legislators.  Such  were  their 
refusal  to  recognise  the  gods  Tuesco  or  Woden  by  speaking 
of  Tuesday  or  Wednesday,  to  flatter  a  single  individual  by 
addressing  him  with  a  plural  pronoun,  to  take  off  their  hats  in 
salutation,  to  use  the  ordinary  phrases  of  deference  or  courtesy, 
or  to  abandon  on  any  occasion  their  peculiar  attire ;  and  such, 
too,  in  a  country  where  there  were  few  soldiers,  and  where  there 
was  no  conscription,  was  their  objection  to  bear  arms.  Their 
refusal,  however,  to  take  oaths,  to  pay  tithes,  and  to  subscribe 
articles,  rendered  necessary  a  considerable  amount  of  special 
legislation.  The  first  great  step,  as  we  have  seen,  was  taken 
by  the  Toleration  Act.  The  second  was  the  measure,  carried  in 
1695,  which,  enacting  that  the  solemn  aflBrmation  of  a  Quaker 
'  in  presence  of  Almighty  Grod '  should  in  legal  cases  be  accepted 

'  Skeats'  Hist,  of  Free  Cliurches,  p.  153. 


CH.  H.  THE   QUAXERS  223 

as  equivalent  to  an  oath,  gave  the  sect  for  the  first  time  a  power 
of  protecting  their  property  against  fraud,  and  saved  them  from 
a  vast  amount  of  petty  persecution  and  annoyance.  It  was 
only  enacted  for  a  period  of  seven  years,  and  to  the  end  of  the 
following  session.  It  was  then  renewed  for  eleven  years,  but 
in  the  Tory  ascendancy  in  the  last  days  of  Queen  Anne,  it  was 
greatly  imperilled.  Early  in  the  session  of  1713  the  Quakers 
petitioned  the  House  of  Commons  for  a  continuance  of  the 
Act,  but  the  House  would  not  even  permit  the  petition  to  be 
brought  up.  They  then  applied  to  the  Lords,  who  passed  a 
Bill  in  their  favour,  but  the  Commons  refused  even  to  give  it 
a  first  reading.'  Fortimately,  however,  for  the  sect,  the  Tory 
power  was  speedily  destroyed,  and  the  new  Grovemment  made 
the  Act  of  William  perpetual.  In  the  matter  of  tithes  the 
Quakers  had  also  obtained  some  relief  in  the  reign  of  William. 
They  were  not  relieved  from  the  obligation  of  paying  them, 
but  an  inexpensive  method  was  provided,  under  which  tithes 
not  exceeding  lOl.  might  be  levied  before  two  justices  of  the 
peace,  thus  saving  the  long,  expensive,  and  oppressive  proceed- 
ings of  the  Ecclesiastical  or  Exchequer  Courts.  This  Bill  was 
first  enacted  only  for  three  years,  but  it  was  afterwards  renewed, 
was  extended,  in  the  case  of  Quakers,  to  all  tithes,  and  was  at 
last  made  perpetual. 

Such  was  the  position  acquired  by  the  Nonconformists  at  the 
Revolution.  We  have  seen  how  seriously  it  was  imperilled  in 
the  reign  of  Anne,  and  how  entirely  the  legislation  against 
them  was  the  work  of  the  Tory  party.  It  was  natural  that  it 
should  be  so,  as  the  Established  Church  was  the  especial  strong- 
hold of  Toryism ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  true  that  a  certain 
change  had  passed  over  the  attitude  of  parties  since  James  had 
made  overtures  to  the  Dissenting  leaders,  and,  by  the  promise 
of  toleration,  had  drawn  some  of  them  for  a  time  to  his  side. 
The  Jacobitism  of  the  reign  of  Anne  was  violently  hostile  to  the 
Dissenters,  and  it  was  chiefly  the  Jacobite  wing  of  the  Tories, 

'  See  the  TTist.  of  the  Last  Four  Years  of  Queen  Anne. 


224  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n 

led  by  Bolingbroke  and  Atterbury,  which  forced  the  hand  of 
Oxford  and  carried  the  Schism  Act.  As  a  natural  consequence 
the  whole  body  of  Protestant  Dissenters  were  passionately 
devoted  to  the  Hanoverian  succession. ^  Their  numbers  appear 
hy  this  time  to  have  considerably  increased.  It  appears,  by  a 
report  drawn  up  by  Neal,  the  well-known  historian  of  Puritan- 
ism, in  1715  and  1716,  that  at  that  date  there  were  1,107 
Dissenting  congregations  in  England  and  43  in  Wales.  The 
Presbyterians  were  by  far  the  most  numerous,  and  they  about 
equalled  the  Independents  and  Baptists  united.^  The  position 
of  the  Nonconformists  in  the  last  few  months  of  the  reign  of 
Anne  was  extremely  perilous,  and  they  had  everything  to  fear 
from  the  ministry  of  Bolingbroke ;  but  the  Queen,  by  a  remark- 
able coincidence,  died  on  the  very  day  on  which  the  Schism 
Act  was  to  have  come  into  operation.  It  is  related  that  on  that 
morning  Burnet  met  Bradbury,  the  minister  of  the  great  Inde- 
pendent Chapel  in  Fetter  Lane,  walking  through  Smithfield 
with  slow  steps,  and  with  an  absent  and  dejected  air.  '  I  was 
thinking,'  he  said,  in  reply  to  the  greeting  of  the  Bishop, 
'  whether  I  shall  have  the  constancy  and  resolution  of  the 
martyrs  who  suffered  in  this  spot,  for  I  most  assuredly  expect 
to  see  similar  times  of  violence  and  persecution.'  The  Bishop 
consoled  him  by  the  intelligence  that  the  Queen  was  dying,  and 
promised,  as  soon  as  the  event  occm'red,  to  send  a  messenger  to 
inform  him,  or,  if  it  was  the  hour  of  public  worship,  to  drop  a 
handkerchief  from  the  gallery  of  his  chapel.  A  few  hours  later, 
while  London  was  still  wholly  ignorant  of  what  had  happened, 
the  signal  was  given.  Bradbury  concluded  his  sermon  with 
a  fervent  thanksgiving  to  God,  who  had  blasted  the  hopes 
and  designs  of  wicked  men.  He  announced  to  his  startled 
hearers  the  accession  of  George  I.,  and  having  implored  the 
Divine  blessing  on  the  King  and  on  his  family,  minister  and 

'Burgess,  the  most  popular  Dis-  were  called  Israelites  'because  God 

senting  minister  in   London  in  the  did  not  wish  his  people  to  be  called 

reigns  of  William  and  Anne,  is  said  Jacobites.'— Bogue  and  Bennett, 
to   have    once    explained   from  the  ■  Bogue  and^Bennett,  Hist,  of  the 

pulpit  that  the  descendants  of  Jacob  Dissenters,  i.  357-359. 


CH.  11.  INTOLERANCE  OF  THE  WHIGS.  225 

congregation  joined  in  a  psalm'  of  triumpli,  describing  the 
chosen  prince,  raised  up  by  the  Almighty  Hand  to  save  His 
people  from  their  enemies.  Some  time  later  the  same  minister, 
accompanied  by  several  other  leading  Xonconformists,  was 
deputed  to  present  an  address  of  congratulation  to  the  new 
sovereign.  In  the  vestibule  of  the  palace  they  met  Boling- 
broke,  who  asked  them  sarcastically,  as  he  pointed  to  their 
dark  robes,  which  contrasted  strangely  with  the  pageantry 
about  them,  '  Is  this  a  funeral  ? '  '  No,  my  Lord,'  was  the 
answer,  '  not  a  funeral,  but  a  resurrection  ! '  ^ 

These  were  the  chief  elements  that  composed  the  Whig 
party  which  the  accession  of  George  I.  raised  to  power.  But 
although  a  'singular  combination  of  skill  and  good  fortune  had 
secured  its  success,  although  a  dynasty  which  Avas  once  on 
the  throne,  and  was  supported  by  the  army,  was  able,  for  a  time 
at  least,  to  command  the  allegiance  of  the  classes  who  always 
rally  around  order,  yet  the  permanence  of  the  Government  seemed 
more  than  doubtful.  The  strongest  sympathies  and  enthusiasms 
of  the  nation  took  other  directions,  and  the  balance  of  classes 
was  decidedly  against  it.  The  "NMiigs  directed  everything 
to  their  own  advantage,  and  entirely  discarded  the  policy  of 
endeavouring  to  conciliate  their  opponents.  The  systematic  ex- 
clusion of  all  Tories  from  tlie  Government ;  the  censure  by  both 
Houses  of  a  peace  which  had  been  approved  by  two  successive 
Parliaments ;  the  report  of  the  Secret  Committee  in  which  the 
whole  conduct  of  the  late  ministers  in  negotiating  the  peace  was 
minutely  investigated  and  painted  in  the  blackest  colours  ;  and 
finally  the  impeachment  of  Bolingbroke,  Oxford,  Ormond,  and 
Strafiford  were  sufficient  to  drive  almost  the  whole  party  into 
the  arms  of  Jacobitism.  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that,  even 
in  this  season  of  party  violence  and  party  triumph,  the  Whig- 
leaders  shrank  from  a  repetition  of  the  Sacheverell  agitation, 
and   abstained   very  prudently,  though  very  illogically,   from 

'  The  eighty-ninth  Psalm.  Bogue  and  Bennett's  TT'ust.  of  Di.isen- 

-  Or  according  to  anotlier  version,  ters,  ii.  pp.  78-71>,  and  Wilson's  Hist. 

•The  funeral  of  the  Schism  Act — the  of  Digscnting  Churches,  iii.  513-514. 

resurrection  of    liberty.'  —  Compare 


VOL.  I. 


16 


226  £NGLA>"D  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ii. 

impeaching  the  Bishop  of  Bristol,  who  had  been  one  of  the 
plenipotentiaries  in  negotiating  the  peace,  though  they  im- 
peached his  colleague.  Lord  Strafford.  The  violence  shown  on  this 
occasion  was  a  natural  consequence  of  the  measures  of  the  last 
administration,  but  few  will  now  question  that  it  was  excessive. 
No  conclusive  evidence  of  the  Jacobite  intrigues  of  the  late 
Government  was  at  that  period  accessible  to  the  ministers. 
The  '  restraining  orders '  furnished  a  ground  for  impeachment 
which  was  unquestionably  valid,  but  they  could  affect  neither 
Ormond,  whose  duty  as  a  soldier  was  simply  to  obey  orders,  nor 
Strafford,  who  was  negotiating  in  Holland.  However  inadequate, 
and  even  criminal,  might  have  been  the  terms  of  the  peace, 
the  approbation  of  the  preceding  Parliaments  should  have 
sheltered  its  authors  from  criminal  proceedings.  The  aspect 
of  English  politics  was  now  rapidly  changed  by  the  disappear- 
ance of  many  leading  figures  from  the  scene.  Bolingbroke 
fled  to  France,  and,  in  a  moment  of  anger  or  miscalculation, 
threw  himself  openly  into  the  service  of  the  Pretender,  and 
thus  exposed  himself  to  an  Act  of  Attainder  and  irretrievably 
ruined  his  future  career.  Ormond,  soon  after,  took  the  same 
course,  with  a  similar  result ;  but  after  a  short  time  he  abandoned 
politics  and  lived  quietly  in  France.  Oxford  awaited  the 
storm  with  his  usual  calm  corn-age,  and  he  was  flung  into  the 
Tower,  where  he  remained  untried  for  two  years.  In  1715 
the  Whigs  lost  Wharton,  the  most  skilful  and  unscrupulous  of 
their  party  managers,  Halifax,  the  greatest  of  their  financiers, 
and  Burnet,  the  most  brilliant  of  their  churchmen.  Somers 
lingered  till  1716,  but  he  was  now  a  helpless  paralytic,  and, 
though  a  few  fitful  flashes  of  his  old  intelligence  were  occa- 
sionally discerned,  his  mind  for  many  months  before  his  death 
was  profoundly  impaired.  Marlborough  soon  experienced  the 
same  fate.  Though  appointed  Captain -General  and  Master  of 
the  Ordnance  by  the  new  Government,  he  received  no  con- 
fidence and  exercised  scarcely  any  influence,  and  he  viewed 
with  bitter  displeasure  the  course  of  events.  The  death  of  two 
daughters,  in  171-4,  threw  a  deep  shadow  over  his    life.     In 


CH.  II.  POPULAR  DISTURBANCES.  227 

171 G  he  was  reduced  by  two  successive  strokes  of  paralysis  to 
almost  complete  impotence,  and  he  remained  a  pitiable  wreck 
till  bis  death  in  1722. 

In  the  country  the  surprised  acquiescence  and  the  sense 
of  relief  from  impending  danger,  which  had  greeted  the  acces- 
sion of  George  I.  were  soon  replaced  by  a  general  discontent. 
The  University  of  Oxford  testified  its  sentiments  by  confer- 
ring, on  the  very  day  of  the  King's  coronation,  an  honorary 
degree  on  Sir  Constantino  Phipps,  who  had  just  been  removed 
from  the  Government  of  Ireland  on  suspicion  of  Jacobitism. 
On  the  same  day  violent  riots  broke  out  at  Birmingham, 
Bristol,  Chippenham,  Norwich,  and  Eeading.  Similar  scenes 
soon  occurred  in  almost  every  considerable  town  in  the 
kingdom.  The  birthdays  of  Anne  and  of  Ormond  and  the 
imprisonment  of  Oxford  were  the  occasions  of  violent  and 
threatening  disturbances  The  House  of  Lords  in  1716 
strongly  censured  the  University  authorities  of  Oxford  for 
having  refused  to  take  any  measures  for  celebrating  the 
birthday  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who 
attempted  to  celebrate  the  King's  birthday  in  London  with 
the  usual  festivities  were  insulted  by  the  populace  ;  and  on  the 
following  day,  which  happened  to  be  the  anniversary  of  the 
Eestoration,  bonfires  were  lit,  the  streets  were  illuminated,  a 
picture  of  King  William  was  burnt  in  Smithfield,  great  crowds 
patrolled  the  city,  shouting  '  Ormond  and  High  Church  for 
ever  I '  and  several  persons  were  injured.  The  Dissenters,  in 
1714  and  1715,  were  exposed  to  violence  very  similar  to  that 
which  they  had  experienced  after  the  impeachment  of  Sache- 
verell.  In  London  several  of  theii*  ministers  were  burnt  in 
efiBgy.  At  Oxford  a  Quaker  meeting-house  was  utterly  de- 
stroyed, and  in  most  of  the  towns  of  Staffordshire,  Shropshire, 
and  Cheshire  the  Nonconformist  chapels  were  wrecked.^  The 
Nonjurors  now  very  generally  attended  the  ordinary  church 
service,  but  they  took  great  pains  to  show  that  their  antipathy 

'  See  "Wright's  England  under  the      V>^ilson's  Li fe of  DefoeyHo^ers' Protests 
Home  of  JIanover,  Tindal's  History,      of  the  House  of  Lords,  i.  234-236. 


228  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

to  the  Eevolution  was  unabated.  Some  of  them,  when  the 
names  of  the  King  and  royal  family  were  mentioned  in  the 
prayers,  stood  up  and  faced  the  congregation.  Others  less 
demonstratively  glided  down  on  their  hassocks,  and  remained 
sitting  till  the  prayers  were  over.  Others  tried  the  gravity  of 
the  congregation  by  ostentatiously  rustling  the  pages  of  their 
prayer-books  in  order  that  they  might  not  hear  the  obnoxious 
names.'  A  fashion  became  common  of  drinking  disloyal  toasts 
in  disguised  forms,  such  as  '  Kit,'  or  King  James  III. ;  '  Job,'  or 
James,  Ormond,  and  Bolingbroke  ;  '  three  pounds  fourteen  and 
livepence,'  or  James  III.,  Lewis  XIV.,  and  Philip  V.  Innu- 
merable ballads  and  pamphlets  circulated  through  the  country, 
sustaining  and  representing  the  prevailing  discontent. 

The  situation  was,  undoubtedly,  very  critical.  The  ministers 
had  secured  a  large  Whig  majority  in  the  Parliament,  but  there 
was  every  probability  that  if  a  dissolution  occurred  in  three 
years,  the  verdict  would  have  been  reversed,  and  another  of  those 
great  revulsions  of  power  which  of  late  years  had  been  so  fre- 
quent would  have  taken  place.^  The  utter  ignorance  of  the  King 
of  the  language  of  his  people,  and  his  awkward  retiring  manners, 
disgusted  the  nation  all  the  more  because  it  was  the  habit  of  the 
"Whig  party  to  throw  many  imputations  upon  the  late  Queen. 
It  was  remarked  with  bitterness  that  one  of  the  very  first 
acts  of  the  new  Government  in  foreign  policy  was  to  embroil 
England  with  a  Northern  Power  in  the  interests  of  Hanover. 
Bremen  and  Verden,  which  had  been  ceded  to  Sweden  by  the 
treaty  of  Westphalia,  had,  on  account  of  their  situation  between 
Hanover  and  the  sea,  been  long  an  object  of  desire  to  the  Princes 
of  the  House  of  Brunswick.     In  1712  these  provinces,  together 

'  Kennett's    Life,    pp.     161-162.  right,  as  from  hatred  to  the  House 

Perry's    Hist,    of     the     Church    of  of  Hauover,  and  to  prevent  the  ruin 

£>i//lafid,  iii.  71.  of  the  Church   and  of  the  liberties 

2  Marshal  Berwick,  the  truest  and  of  the  kingdom  ;  and  he  added  that 
mostmoderateof  the  Jacobite  leaders,  many  persons  of  the  greatest  con- 
declared  at  this  time  that  five  out  of  sideration,  many  noblemen,  clergy, 
six  of  the  English  nation  were  on  the  and  gentlemen,  had  given  assurances 
side  of  King  James,  not,  indeed,  so  of  their  good  intentions. — Mimoires 
much  on  account  of  his  incontestable  dii  Marechal  de  Bernich,  ii.  ISO-liO. 


CH.  II.  BREMEN  AND   VERDEN.  229 

with  Schleswig  and  Holstein,  liad  been  conquered  by  Denmark  ; 
but  the  Kin<2f  of  Denmark,  foreseeing  that  he  would  be  unable 
to  resist  tlie  arras  of  Sweden,  on  the  return  of  Charles  XII. 
from  Turkey,  resolved,  by  the  sacrifice  of  a  portion  of  his  new 
dominions,  to  endeavour  to  secure  the  remainder.  He  accord- 
ingly sold  Bremen  and  Verden  to  George,  as  Elector  of  Hanover, 
for  150,000/.,  on  the  further  condition  that  Hanover  should  join 
in  the  war  against  Sweden.  Xo  sooner  had  this  step  been  taken 
than  a  British  fleet  was  despatched  to  the  Baltic,  ostensibly  for 
the  purpose  of  protecting  British  trade,  really  for  the  purpose 
of  intimidating  Sweden  into  concession.  The  Whig  ministers 
supported  this  policy,  on  the  ground  that  these  provinces,  which 
command  the  navigation  of  the  Elbe  and  of  the  Weser,  the  only 
inlets  from  the  British  seas  into  Germany,  are  of  essential 
importance  in  case  of  war,  as  protecting  or  interruptiug  the 
British  commerce  with  Hamburg,  and  it  was  therefore  a  great 
British  interest  that  they  should  be  in  possession  of  a  power 
which  was  necessarily  friendly  to  Great  Britain.  It  was 
answered  that  a  serious  risk  of  war  was  incurred  for  the  attain- 
ment of  an  old  object  of  Hanoverian  ambition,  that  George 
would  never  have  entered  into  the  enterprise  had  it  not  been  for 
the  power  he  possessed  as  a  British  sovereign,  and  that  the  English 
ministers  would  never  have  acquiesced  in  it  had  they  not  been 
anxious  by  every  means  to  monopolise  the  favour  of  the  King. 
A  similar  disposition,  both  on  the  part  of  the  sovereign  and  his 
ministers,  was  shown  in  the  speedy  repeal  of  that  clause  of  the 
Act  of  Settlement  which  prohibited  the  King  from  going  abroad 
without  the  consent  of  his  Parliament.  While  the  tide  of  dis- 
content in  England  rose  higher  and  liigher,  alarming  news  was 
reported  from  Scotland.  On  September  6,  1715,  Lord  Mar  set 
up  the  Jacobite  banner  at  Braemar,  and  in  a  few  weeks  10,000 
men  were  gathered  around  it. 

The  measures  of  the  Government  were  marked  with  great 
energy,  promptitude,  and  severity.  The  hawkers  who  cried 
Tory  pamphlets  and  broadsides  tlirough  the  streets  were  at  once 
sent  to  the  House  of  Correction.     A  reward  of  1,000/.  was  of- 


230  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  CH.  n. 

fered  for  the  discovery  of  the  author,  a  reward  of  5001.  for  that 
of  the  printer,  of  the  '  English  Advice  to  the  Freeholders  of 
England,'  the  most  brilliant  and  popular  of  the  Tory  pamphlets. 
A  schoolmaster  named  Bournois,  who  asserted  that  the  King  had 
no  rio-ht  to  the  British  throne,  was  condemned  to  be  scourged 
throu(>-h  the  city,  and  the  sentence  was  executed  with  such  fero 
city  that  he  died  in  a  few  days.  The  disturbances  in  the  great 
towns  were  met  by  a  permanent  Act,  still  in  force,  providing  that 
any  assembly  of  more  than  twelve  persons  who,  having  been  en- 
joined to  disperse  by  a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  and  having  heard  the 
proclamation  against  riots  read,  did  not  separate  within  an  hour, 
should  be  esteemed  guilty  of  felony.  A  royal  order  was  issued 
strictly  forbidding  the  clergy  to  introduce  any  political  allusions 
into  their  sermons ;  but  when  the  rebellion  broke  out,  all  the 
bishops  except  Atterbury  and  Smalridge  signed  a  joint  paper  con- 
demning it.  On  the  first  news  of  that  event  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  was  suspended.  A  reward  of  100,O0OL  was  offered  for  the 
apprehension  of  the  Pretender,  alive  or  dead.  The  contingent 
of  6,000  men,  which  the  Dutch  had  bound  themselves  by  treaty 
to  furnish  whenever  the  Protestant  succession  was  in  danger, 
was  claimed,  and  orders  were  given  for  raising  in  England 
thirteen  regiments  of  dragoons  and  eight  of  infantry  ;  for  keep- 
ing the  trained  bands  in  readiness  to  suppress  tumults;  for 
dismissing  suspected  Jacobites  from  their  posts  in  the  army,  and 
even  for  arresting,  with  the  consent  of  the  House,  some  Jacobite 
Members  of  Parliament. 

The  rebellion  was  from  the  first  almost  hopeless.  Berwick 
stated,  indeed,  with  much  plausibility,  that  if  supported  by  a 
body  of  regular  troops  it  must  have  succeeded  ;  ^  but  everything 
at  this  time  seemed  to  conspire  against  the  Stuarts.  Between 
the  inception  and  the  execution  of  the  project,  Lewis  XIV. 
died,  the  Regent  who  succeeded  to  power  leaned  towards  the 
English  alliance,  and  thvis,  while  the  reigning  King  could  re- 
ceive succours  both  from  G  ermany  and  from  Holland,  all  chance 
of  French  assistance  to  the  Jacobites  was  lost.  Hardly  less 
'  Memoires  de  Bem-ich,  ii.  148. 


CH,  n.  EEBELLION    OF   1715.  231 

calamitous  had  been  the  flight  of  Ormond.  His  character,  his 
position,  and  his  great  liberality,  bad  made  him  one  of  the  mo?t 
popular  men  in  England.  Had  be  been  in  it  when  the  insur- 
rection broke  out,  he  would  have  been  universally  recognised  as 
its  chief,  and  as  he  had  commanded  the  British  array,  he  liad 
at  least  some  military  knowledge,  and  wovdd  probably  have 
drawn  a  portion  of  the  regular  troops  to  his  side.  An  attempt 
was  made  to  induce  the  King  of  Sweden  to  join  in  the  enter- 
prise, but  it  was  unsuccessful,  and  the  whole  project  was  under- 
taken with  a  recklessness  and  a  fatuity  almost  incredible.  Hso 
single  step  was  taken  to  produce  a  rebellion  in  Ireland,  and  the 
Government  was  therefore  able  to  despatch  several  regiments 
from  that  country  to  crush  the  Scotch  Jacobites.  Even  in 
England  no  general  rising  appears  to  have  been  prepared.  The 
rebellion  in  Scotland  was  hurried  on  by  the  orders  of  the  Pre- 
tender, without  tlie  knowledge  either  of  Bolingbroke  or  of 
Berwick,'  and  there  was  scarcely  a  single  man  of  ordinary  mili- 
tary knowledge  connected  with  it.  Mar,  though  in  other  fields 
he  showed  considerable  ability,  was  in  this  respect  conspicuously 
deficient,  and  he  was  also  wholly  without  the  decision  and 
daring  needed  for  the  enterprise.  The  Jacobites  were  almost 
without  arms  and  without  organisation.  Their  secret  intelli- 
gence was  interrupted  ;  their  plans  were  discovered  ;  several  of 
their  leaders,  before  they  had  time  to  take  arms,  were  thro-\vn 
into  prison ;  and,  although  a  large  proportion  of  the  nation 
undoubtedly  sympathised  with  their  cause,  few  men  were  pre- 
pared to  risk  their  lives  and  properties  in  an  enterprise  at  once 
so  hazardous  and  so  mismanaged. 

A  plan  for  surprising  Edinburgh  Castle  was  defeated  by  the 
secret  information  of  a  woman.  Tlie  Highland  ciiiefs  were 
summoned  by  the  Government  to  Edinburgh  ;  and  though  few 
of  them  obeyed,  Argyle  and  Sutherland,  who  were,  perhaps,  the 
most  powerful,  were  on  the  Hanoverian  side,  and  many  of  the 
leading  Jacobites  in  Scotland  were  put  under  arrest.  Mar,  with 
the  bulk  of  the  insurgents,  seized  oh  Perth  ;  but  he  remained 

•  Memoires  de  Bertvicli,  ii.  1^2. 


232  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

there  inactive  and  undecided,  waiting,  apparently,  for  an  insur- 
rection in  England  during  the  critical  time  that  elapsed  before 
the  Government  could  organise  its  forces.  In  England  the 
energy  of  the  ministers  completely  paralysed  the  rebellion. 
Oxford,  which  was  a  special  centre  of  Jacobitism,  was  occupied 
by  a  large  body  of  cavalry.  Ormond,  after  a  very  unwise  delay, 
attempted  a  descent  upon  Devonshire,  and  as  the  western 
counties  were  intensely  Tory,  he  expected  a  general  rising,  but 
his  plans  were  betrayed  by  a  Jacobite  agent  named  M'Lean. 
Windham,  Lord  Lansdowne,  and  other  prominent  gentlemen 
who  were  to  have  organised  the  movement,  were  arrested  ;  the 
garrison  of  Plymouth  was  changed,  Bristol  was  defended  by  a 
body  of  infantry,  and  the  success  of  these  measures  was  so  com- 
plete that  Ormond,  finding  no  prospect  of  support,  returned  to 
France  without  even  landing.  In  Northumberland  a  body  of 
Jacobites  took  up  arms  under  Mr.  Forster,  one  of  the  Members 
for  the  county,  supported  by  Lord  Derwentwater  and  some  other 
leading  gentry.  They  were  joined  by  a  small  body  of  Scotch 
insurgents  under  Lord  Kenmure  and  the  Earls  of  Carnwath, 
Nithsdale,  and  Wintoun,  who  had  taken  arms  in  the  south-west  of 
Scotland,  and  soon  after  by  a  brigade  of  about  2,000  Highlanders 
under  the  command  of  an  officer  named  Mackintosh,  who  had 
been  despatched  by  Mar.  This  officer,  who  was  one  of  the  few 
men  who  gained  some  laurels  in  the  contest,  had  previously 
succeeded  in  crossing  the  Frith  of  Forth  in  the  face  of  three 
English  men-of-war,  had  taken  possession  of  Leith,  and  would 
probably  have  captured  Edinburgh  itself  had  not  the  royal 
army  under  Argyle  marched  to  its  assistance.  He  then  suc- 
ceeded in  effecting  his  retreat  unmolested,  and  joined  the 
Northumberland  army,  when,  however,  many  of  his  Highlanders 
deserted.  Instead  of  marching  northwards  to  attack  Argyle  in 
the  rear,  the  insurgents  made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  upon 
Newcastle,  marched  into  Lancashire,  where  they  were  joined  by 
many  of  the  Eoman  Catholics  who  were  so  numerous  in  that 
county,  and  occupied  Preston  ;  but  they  were  soon  attacked  by 
General  Wills,  and,  after  a  short  siege,  compelled  to  surrender. 


CH.  n.  REBELLION   OF   1715.  233 

On  the  same  day  the  first  considerable  encounter  in  Scotland 
took  place.  Mar,  after  a  long  delay,  having  been  joined  by  the 
northern  clans  under  Lord  Seaforth,  and  by  those  of  the  west 
under  General  Gordon,  marched  towards  Stirling  in  hopes  of 
joining  the  insurgents  in  the  south,  and  was  encountered  by 
Argyle  at  Sheriflfmuir.  The  battle  was  indecisive,  or,  to  speak 
more  accurately,  the  left  wing  of  the  army  of  Argyle  was  totally 
defeated  by  the  Highlanders,  while  the  right  wing  was  as  com- 
pletely victorious.  Each  party  claimed  the  victory,  and  each 
party  drew  off  at  last  without  molestation.  Nearly  at  the  same 
time  the  cause  of  the  Pretender  received  a  fatal  blow  in  the 
capture  of  Inverness  by  Lord  Lovat.  This  sagacious  and  un- 
principled man  had  now  for  a  short  time  deserted,  through  a 
personal  motive,  the  Jacobite  cause,  to  which  he  had  formerly 
belonged,  and  for  which  he  afterwards  died,  and  he  rendered  an 
eminent  service  to  the  Government.  Lord  Seaforth  and  Lord 
Huntly  were  compelled  to  return  to  defend  their  own  country, 
where  they  soon  after  laid  down  their  arms,  and  the  army  of  Mar 
was  rapidly  disintegrated  by  desertions  and  divisions.  At  last, 
towards  the  close  of  December,  the  Pretender  himself  came  over 
to  Scotland.  He  made  a  public  entry  into  Dundee,  reviewed  the 
remnant  of  his  army  at  Perth,  and  tried  to  rekindle  its  waning 
spirit.  It  was,  however,  too  late.  The  Dutch  auxiliaries  had 
already  arrived.  The  Jacobites  were  almost  destitute  of  money, 
forage,  ammunition,  and  provisions,  and  nothing  remained  but  a 
precipitate  retreat.  It  was  effected  through  the  deep  snow  of  a 
Scotch  winter.  The  Pretender,  with  Lord  JNIar  and  a  few  other 
persons  of  distinction,  embarked  in  a  small  French  vessel  from 
Montrose,  and  having  first  sailed  to  Norway,  they  succeeded,  by 
a  circuitous  route,  in  evading  the  English  cruisers,  and  ar- 
riving in  safety  at  the  French  coast,  while  their  army  rapidly 
dispersed.  Of  the  prisoners,  great  numbers  were  brought  to 
trial.  Two  peers  and  thirty-four  commoners  were  executed. 
Lords  Nithsdale  and  Wintoun,  who  were  reserved  for  the  same 
fate,  succeeded  in  escaping,  and  many  Jacobites  were  sentenced 
by  the  law  courts  to  less  severe  punishments,  or  were  deprived 
of  their  titles  and  possessions  by  Acts  of  Attainder. 


234     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  n. 

So  ended  the  Kebellion  of  1715,  which  reflected  very  little 
credit  on  any  of  those  concerned  in  it.  How  little  confidence 
the  most  acute  observers  felt  in  the  stability  of  the  dynasty  is 
curiously  illustrated  by  the  fact,  which  has  recently  been  dis- 
covered, that  Shrewsbury,  who  in  1714  had,  of  all  men,  done 
most  to  bring  it  on  the  throne,  was  deeply  engaged  in  1715 
in  Jacobite  intrigues,  while  Marlborough  had  actually  furnished 
money  for  the  enterprise  of  the  Pretender.*  Had  that  enter- 
prise ever  worn  a  hopeful  aspect,  large  classes  would  probably 
have  rallied  around  it ;  but  in  England,  at  least,  scarcely  any- 
one was  prepared  to  make  serious  sacrifices,  or  to  encounter 
serious  dangers  for  its  success.  Dislike  to  the  foreign  dynasty 
was  general,  but  the  conflict  between  the  passion  of  loyalty  and 
the  hatred  of  Catholicism  had  lowered  the  English  character. 
The  natural  political  enthusiasm  of  the  time  was  driven  in- 
wards and  repressed.  Divided  sentiments  produced  weak  reso- 
lutions, and  a  material  and  selfish  spirit  was  creeping  over 
politics.  In  this,  as  in  the  preceding  reign,  the  Whigs  showed 
themselves  incomparably  superior  to  their  opponents  in  organisa- 
tion, in  energy,  and  in  skill ;  but  how  little  they  counted  upon 
the  national  gratitude  or  support  was  shown  by  the  fact  that 
one  of  their  first  cares,  on  the  termination  of  the  rebellion,  was 
to  pass  the  Septennial  Act,  in  order  to  adjourn  for  several  years 
a  general  election.  Much  was,  indeed,  said  of  the  demoralisa- 
tion of  the  country,  and  of  the  ruin  of  the  country  gentry,  re- 
sulting from  triennial  elections ;  of  the  animosities  planted  in 
constituencies  which  had  no  time  to  subside ;  of  the  instability 
of  a  foreign  policy  depending  on  a  constantly  fluctuating  legisla- 
ture ;  but  the  real  and  governing  motive  of  the  change  was  the 
conviction  that  an  election  in  17 1 7  would  be  probably  fatal  to  the 
ministry  and,  very  possibly,  to  the  dynasty.  The  Bill,  though  it 
related  specially  to  the  constitution  of  the  Lower  House,  was  first 
introduced  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  as  it  was  passed  without 

'  This    very   remarkable    fact    is  1715,    extracted    from     the     Stuart 

established    by    two     letters     from  Papers,  and  given  in  the  appendix  to 

Bolingbroke  to  the  Pretender,  dated  the  1st  vol.  of  Lord  Stanhope's  Hist. 

respectively  Aug.  20,  and  Sept.  25,  of  England. 


CH.  II.  DECLINE   OF  MONARCHICAL  SENTIMENT.  235 

a  dissolution,  Parliament  not  only  determined  the  natural  dura- 
tion of  fuiui-e  legislatures,  but  also  prolonged  the  tenure  of 
the  existing  House  of  Commons  for  four  years  beyond  the  time 
for  which  it  was  elected. 

It  was  on  this  side  that  the  great  dangers  of  the  dynasty  lay. 
If  the  character  of  Parliament  continued  to  fluctuate  as  rapidly 
as  it  had  done  in  the  first  decade  of  the  century ;  if  the  Church 
and  the  landed  gentry  continued  to  look  on  the  reigning  family 
with  hostility  or  with  a  sullen  indifference,  it  was  inevitable 
that  the  normal  action  of  parliamentary  government  should 
soon  bring  the  enemies  of  the  dynasty  into  power.  If  the  House 
of  Brunswick  was  to  continue  on  the  throne,  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  that  something  should  be  done  to  clog  the  parlia- 
mentary machine,  to  prevent  it  from  responding  instantaneously 
to  every  breath  of  popular  passion,  to  strengthen  the  influence 
of  the  executive  both  over  the  House  and  over  the  constituen- 
cies. The  first  great  step  towards  this  end  was  the  Septennial 
Act,  but  it  would,  probably,  have  proved  less  successful  had  not 
a  long  series  of  causes  been  in  action  which  lowered  still  more 
the  Tory  sentiment  in  England,  and  gradually  and  almost  in- 
sensibly produced  a  condition  of  thought  and  government  very 
favourable  to  the  policy  of  the  Whigs. 

In  the  first  place,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  monarchical 
sentiment  should  be  materially  diminished  by  the  mere  fact 
that  the  title  to  the  crown  was  disputed.  In  this  respect  the 
position  of  England  resembled  that  of  a  very  large  part  of 
Europe,  for  the  great  multitude  of  disputed  titles  forms  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  political  characteristics  of  the  early 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  throne  of  England  was 
disputed  between  the  House  of  Hanover  and  the  House  of 
Stuart.  The  Spanish  throne  was  disputed  between  Philip  Y. 
and  the  Emperor.  In  Italy  the  Houses  of  Medici  and  of  Farnese 
became  extinct,  and  the  successions  of  Tuscany  and  Parma  were 
disputed  by  the  Emperor  and  the  Spanish  Queen.  In  Poland 
the  rival  claims  of  Stanislaus,  who  was  supported  by  Charles  XII., 
and  of  Augustus,  who  was  supported  by  Peter  the  Great,  were 


236  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  u. 

diu-ing  many  years  contested  by  arms.  In  France  the  title  of 
the  young  King  Avas,  indeed,  vmdisputed,  but  his  fragile  consti- 
tution made  men  look  forward  to  his  speedy  death,  and  parties 
were  already  forming  in  support  of  the  rival  claims  of  the  Regent 
and  of  the  King  of  Spain.  Among  the  causes  which  were  lowering 
the  position  of  monarchy  in  Em-ope  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  multiplication  of  these  disputed  titles  deserves  a  prominent 
place.  They  shook  the  reverence  for  the  throne ;  they  destroyed 
the  mystic  sanctity  that  surrounded  it;  they  brought  the 
supreme  authority  of  the  nation  into  the  arena  of  controversy. 

In  England,  since  the  period  of  the  Eestoration,  the  doctrine 
of  the  Divine  right  of  kings  and  of  the  absolute  criminality  of  all 
rebellion,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  fundamental  tenet,  not  only  of 
the  Tory  party,  but  also  of  the  Established  Church.  But  from 
the  accession  of  George  I.  it  began  rapidly  to  decline.  The 
enthronement  of  the  new  dynasty  had,  for  a  time  at  least,  solved 
the  doubtful  question  of  the  succession  according  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Eevolution.  The  chief  offices  in  the  Church  were 
reserved  for  divines  who  accepted  those  principles.  The  incon- 
sistencies of  the  clergy  during  the  three  preceding  reigns  had 
weakened  their  authority  and  broken  the  force  of  the  Anglican 
tradition  ;  and  in  the  rapid  disappearance  of  doctrinal  teaching, 
and  the  silent  conversion  of  Christianity  into  a  mere  system  of 
elevated  morality,  a  theory  of  government  which  based  authority 
upon  a  religious  dogma  appeared  peculiarly  incongruous.  The 
tendency  was  assisted  by  the  religious  scepticism  of  the  most 
brilliant  of  the  Tory  chiefs.  The  theory  of  '  the  Patriot  King,' 
as  far  as  it  can  be  discerned  through  the  cloud  of  vague  though 
eloquent  verbiage  in  which  it  is  enveloped,  is,  that  the  power 
and  prerogative  of  the  sovereign  should  be  gi'eatly  enlarged  as 
the  only  efficient  check  upon  the  corruption  of  Parliaments ;  but 
in  this,  as  in  other  of  his  later  writings,  Bolingbroke  spoke  of 
the  theological  doctrine  which  had  once  been  the  rallying  cry 
of  his  party  with  unmitigated  contempt.'     It  was,  of  course, 

'  '  As  kings  have  found  the  great      the  empire  which  priests  obtain  over 
effects   wrought  in    government   by       the  consciences  of  mankind,  so  priests 


CH.  n.  DECLINE   OF  MONARCHICAL  SENTIilENT.  237 

impossible  that  such  a  tone  should  have  been  employed  by  the 
Tory  leader  in  the  more  active  portion  of  liis  career ;  but  his 
religious  sentiments  were,  prol)abl3',  very  generally  surmised,  and 
there  is,  I  believe,  no  evidence  that  he  ever  employed  or  coun- 
tenanced the  language  of  Sacheverell  and  his  school. 

There  was  another  consideration  whicli  had  a  very  powerful 
influence  in  the  same  direction.  The  undoubted  benefits  which 
England  obtained  from  the  events  of  the  Revolution  were 
purchased  not  only  by  the  evil  of  a  disputed  succession,  but 
also  by  that  of  a  party  king.  The  very  politicians  who  would 
naturally  have  been  most  inclined  to  magnify  the  royal 
authority  learned  to  look  upon  the  reigning  sovereign  as  the 
head  of  their  opponents,  and  to  make  it  a  main  object  of  their 
policy  to  abridge  his  power.  This  change  had  been  already 
foreshadowed  in  the  severe  restrictions  the  Act  of  Settlement 
imposed  upon  the  Sovereign,  and  there  were  few  subjects  on 
which  Tory  pamphleteers  dilated  with  more  indignant  eloquence 
than  the  facility  with  wliich  the  Whigs  afterwards  consented 
to  relax  its  limitations.^  Windham  denounced  in  the  strongest 
terms  the  unconstitutional  conduct  of  the  new  kine:  in  endeavour- 
ing  by  a  proclamation  to  influence  the  elections  of  1715.  The 
most  jealous  critics  of  the  civil  list  were  to  be  found  in  the  Tory 
ranks.  In  1722,  when  the  House  of  Commons  voted  an  address 
to  the  King,  promising  to  enable  him  to  suppress  all  remaining 
spirit  of  rebellion,  it  was  the  Tory  Shippen  who  moved  that  the 
clause  should  be  added  '  with  due  regard  to  the  liberty  of  the 
subject,  the  constitution  in  Church  and  State,  and  the  laws  now 
in  force.'  ^  Whatever  may  have  been  the  private  sentiments 
of  its  leaders,  the  party  which  assumed  this  attitude  publicly 

have  been  taught  by  experience  that  right  have  been   carried  highest  by 

the  best  way  to  preserve  their  own  those  who  have  had    the  least  pre- 

rank,  dignity,  wealth,  and  power,  all  tension  to  the  Divine  favour.' — The 

raised  upon  a  supposed  Divine  right,  Idea  of  a  Pafi'iot  King.     See  also  the 

is  to  communicate  the  same  preten-  Dissertation   oti   Pariie/t,   letters   vi., 

sion    to    kings,    and,    by  a   fallacy  viii.,  xiv. 

common  to  both,  impose  their  usurpa-  '  See,    for    example,    Atterbury's 

tions   on  a   silly  world.     This   they  '  English  Advice  to  the  Freeholders  of 

have  done:  and  in  the  State  as  in  the  England.' — Somers'  Tracts,  vol.  xiii. 
Church,  these  pretensions  to  a  Divine  '  Pari.  Hist.,  viii.  37. 


238  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  qi.  n. 

disclaimed  the  imputation  of  Jaeobitism.  Its  members,  indeed, 
well  knew  that  that  imputation  was  the  main  obstacle  to  their 
political  success,  but  at  the  same  time  they  regarded  the  royal 
power  with  constant  jealousy,  and  their  public  language  was 
in  glaring  opposition  to  that  which  had  so  long  been  the  very 
shibboleth  of  their  school.' 

By  a  similar  inversion,  the  deep  English  feeling  of  respect 
for  law  and  for  all  duly  constituted  authority,  was  now  turned 
ao-ainst  high  monarchical  views.  English  political  opinion  has 
usually  been  pre-eminently  distinguished  for  its  moderation,  and 
this  characteristic  has  been  very  largely  due  to  two  great  events 
in  English  history.  Democratic  excesses  had  been  completely 
discredited  by  the  Commonwealth,  while  the  Revolution  had 
discredited  extreme  monarchical  doctrines,  by  associating  them 
with  Jaeobitism,  and  therefore  with  conspiracy  against  the  law. 

The  influences  that  were  at  work,  altering  the  position  of  the 
sovereign,  were,  it  is  true,  not  all  in  the  same  direction.  The 
large  standing  armies  that  were  maintained  after  the  Ee volution, 
the  Eiot  Act,  the  increase  of  patronage  resulting  from  extended 
establishments  and  from  the  National  Debt,  and  lastly  the 
prolongation  of  the  duration  of  Parliaments,  were  all  favour- 
able to  his  jjower  or  his  influence.  Great  institutions,  however, 
cannot  rest  solely  upon  a  material  basis,  and  the  causes  that 
were  at  work  lowering  the  English  monarchy  were  such  as  no 
extension  of  patronage  or  even  of  prerogative  could  compensate. 
Divested  of  the  moral  and  imaginative  associations  that  en- 
circled the  legitimate  line,  deprived  of  the  religious  doctrine  on 
Avhich  it  had  once  been  based,  and  alienated  from  the  party 
who  are  the  natural  exponents  of  monarchical  enthusiasm,  it 
sank  at  once  into  a  lower  plane.  The  King  could  lay  no  claim 
to  a  Divine  right.^   His  title  was  exclusively  parliamentary,  and 

'  <  The  Tories  have  been  so  long  on  Parties. 
obliged  to   talk    in    the  republican  -  As  Bolingbroke  said,  '  A  notion 

style  that  they  seem  to  have  made  was  entertained  by  many  that  the 

converts    of    themselves    by    their  worse  title   a  man  had,  the   better 

hypocrisy,  and  to  have  embraced  the  king  he  was  likely  to  make.' — Bisser- 

sentiments  as  well  as  the  language  tation  on  Parties,  letter  vi, 
of  their  adversaries.' — Hume's 


CH.  II,  JACOBITE   MIRACLES.  239 

there  was  nothing  either  in  his  person  or  his  surroundings  to 
appeal  to  the  popular  imagination.  A  profound  revolution,  it 
was  noticed,  took  place  in  the  etiquette  of  the  Court.  The  pomp 
and  pageantry  of  royalty,  whicli  had  long  been  dear  to  English- 
men, and  which  had  reflected,  and  in  some  degree  sustained, 
the  popular  reverence  for  tlie  King,  had  almost  disappeared.^ 
Greorge  I.  brought  to  England  the  simple  habits  of  a  German 
Court.  His  wife  was  a  prisoner  in  Germany.  Plis  favourites 
were  coarse  and  avaricious  German  mistresses.  He  spoke  no 
English  ;  he  was  in  his  fifty-fifth  year,  and  he  had  no  grace  of 
manner  and  no  love  of  display.  Under  these  circumstances 
his  Court  assumed  a  particularly  simple  and  unimposing 
character,  whicli  the  parsimony  and  the  tastes  of  his  two  suc- 
cessors led  them  to  maintain. 

With  the  Divine  right,  the  ascription  of  a  miraculous  power 
naturally  passed  away.  The  service  for  the  miracle  of  the 
royal  touch  was,  indeed,  reprinted  in  the  first  Prayer-book  of 
George  I.^ ;  but  the  power  was  never  exercised  or  claimed 
by  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  and  thus  one  great  source  of  the 
popular  reverence  for  the  monarchy  disappeared.  For  some 
time,  however,  we  may  trace  the  faint  glimmerings  of  a 
supernatural  aureole  in  the  exiled  line.  James  II.,  having 
lost  his  crown  mainly  on  account  of  his  religion,  and  hav- 
ing  shown  in    his  latter   years  a   deep   and    touching   piety,' 

'  A  very  intelligent  traveller  who  Bedchamber  in   waiting;    and   even 

described  England  about  1720,  writes:  when  they  washed  their  hands  that 

'  No  prince  in  the  world  lives  in  the  lord  on  the  knee  held  the  bason.  But 

state  and  grandeur  of  the  King  and  King   George   hath   entirely   altered 

Queen  of  England  .  .  .  Yet  in  my  own  that  method  ;  he  dines  at  St.  James's 

private  opinion  it  savours  too  much  privately,   served   by  his  domestics, 

of  superstition,  being  a  respect  that  and    often     sups    abroad    with    his 

religion  allows  only  to  the  King  of  nobility.' — A   Journey  throiujli  Eng- 

kings.     King   George,  since   his   ac-  land  (by  Jlackj-),  4th  ed.    1724,  vol. 

cession  to  the  throne,  hath  entirely  i.  pp.  198-199. 

altered    this    superstitious    way    of  -  Lathbury's  Wist,  of  Convocation, 

being  served  on   the   knee   at  table.  p.  437. 

King  Charles  II.,  King  James,  King  ^  The  more  amiable  aspects  of  the 

William,  and  Queen  Anne,  whenever  latter  days  of  James — which  Macau- 

they  dined   in  public,  received  wine  lay  has  completely  slurred  over—  are 

ujion  the  knee  from   a  man  of   the  well  given  by  Kanke  in  his  IList.  of 

first   quality,   who   was  Lord  of  the  England  (Eng.  trans.),  v.  274-5. 


240  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  u. 

was  naturally  regarded  with  great  reverence  by  the  more 
devoted  of  his  co-religionists,  and  on  his  death  there  were 
some  attempts  to  invest  him  with  the  reputation  of  a  Saint. 
Worshippers  flocked  in  multitudes  to  the  church  where  his 
body  was  laid,  to  ask  favour  by  his  intercession.  A  curious 
letter  is  still  preserved,  written  by  the  Bishop  of  Autun,  in  the 
December  of  1701,  to  the  widow  of  James,  describing  in  much 
detail  what  the  writer  believed  to  have  been  a  miraculous  cure, 
of  which  he  had  himself  been  the  object.  For  more  than  forty 
years,  he  said,  he  had  been  afflicted  with  a  tumour  beneath  the 
right  eye,  which,  when  pressed,  emitted  matter.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  the  preceding  April  the  fluxion  ceased,  the  tumour 
rapidly  gi'ew  larger  than  a  nut,  and  it  became  so  painful  that  the 
patient  had  not  a  moment  of  repose.  A  surgeon  lanced  it,  and 
from  this  time  the  fluxion  re-commenced  with  such  abundance 
that  it  was  necessary  to  dress  the  sore  eight  or  ten  times  in  the 
twenty-four  hours.  The  bishop  came  to  Paris  and  consulted 
several  leading  physicians,  but  they  told  him  that  there  was  no 
remedy,  and  that  he  must  bear  the  inconvenience  for  the  re- 
mainder of  his  life.  On  September  19  and  20,  two  or  three 
days  after  the  death  of  James,  two  nuns,  in  two  different  con- 
vents, independently  announced  to  him  their  persuasion  that  the 
first  miracle  of  the  deceased  King  would  be  in  his  favour,  and 
promised  to  pray  God,  by  the  intercession  of  James,  to  effect  a 
cm-e.  A  few  days  after,  as  the  bishop  was  celebrating  mass,  in 
the  nunnery  of  Chaillot,  for  the  soul  of  the  King,  his  tumour 
ceased  to  flow,  and  all  traces  of  the  malady  disappeared.  An- 
other story  was  circulated,  concerning  a  young  man  of  Auvergne, 
who  had  been  afflicted  with  fits,  which  were  believed  to  be  of  a 
paralytic  nature,  had  lost  all  use  of  his  limbs,  and  had  tried  in 
vain  many  remedies,  both  medical  and  spiritual.  Immediately 
upon  the  death  of  James,  a  friend,  who  had  a  great  veneration 
for  that  prince,  recommended  the  sufferer  to  seek  help  through 
the  intercession  of  the  saintly  King.  He  did  so,  and  vowed,  if 
he  recovered,  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  his  tomb.  From  that 
day  he  began  to  amend.     On  the  ninth  day  he  was  completely 


CH.  III.  JACOBITE  MIRACLES.  241 

recovered,  and  a  deposition  was  drawn  up  by  the  priest  of  his 
parish,  and  signed  by  himself,  attesting  the  miraculous  nature 
of  the  cure.*  Several  other  cases  were  narrated  of  miracles 
worked  by  the  intercession  of  the  King,  and  there  is  not  much 
doubt  that  if  the  Stuarts  had  been  restored,  and  had  continued 
Catholics,  he  would  have  been  canonised.*  Occasional  rumours 
of  cures  of  scrofula,  effected  by  the  touch  of  the  Pretender,  in 
Paris  or  in  Rome,  were  long  circulated  in  England,^  and  the 
old  ceremony  was  revived  at  Edinburgh  in  1745.*  The  credit 
that  once  attached  to  it,  however,  had  almost  passed,  though  the 
superstition  long  lingered,  and  is,  perhaps,  even  now  hardly 
extinct  in  some  remote  districts.  In  France,  the  ceremony  was 
performed  as  recently  as  the  coronation  of  Charles  X.,  who 
touched,  on  that  occasion,  121  sick  persons.'^  As  late  as  1838, 
a  minister  of  the  Shetland  Isles,  where  scrofulous  diseases  are 
very  prevalent,  tells  us  that  no  cure  was  there  believed  to  be  so 
efficacious  as  the  royal  touch  ;  and  that,  as  a  substitute  for  the 
actual  living  finger  of  royalty,  a  few  crowns  and  half-crowns, 
bearing  the  effigy  of  Charles  I.,  were  carefully  handed  down 
from  generation  to  generation,  and  employed  as  a  remedy  for 
the  evil.^ 

Another  very  important  cause  of  the  decline  of  the  power  of 
royalty  was  the  increased  development  of  party  government.  The 
formation  of  a  ministry,  or  homogeneous  body  of  ruling  states- 

'  These  documents  are  preserved  291-292).     This  anecdote  is  said  to 

among  the  papers  of   the    Cardinal  have  seriously  impaired  the  success  of 

Gualterio.     British     Museum.    Add.  Carte's  history.  See,  too,  a  tract  called 

MSS.  20311.  A  Letter  from  a  Gentleman  in  Rome 

*  See  the  very  curious  extracts  giving  an  account  of  some  sitrprising 
from  the  Xairne  Papers,  in  Macpher-  Cui-es  of  the  King's  Evil  bg  the  touch, 
son's  Original  Pajyers,  i.  595-599.  latehj  effected  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Bolingbroke    noticed    in    1717    how  that  citg  (1721). 

James  '  passes  already  for  a  saint  and  *  Chambers'  Hist,  of  the  Rebellion 

reports   are   encouraged   of   miracles  ^»/"  171o,  p.  125. 

which  they  suppose  to  be  wrought  at  •  Annuaire  Historique,  1825,  p.  276. 

his  iomh:— Letter  to  Windham.  '  JVem  Statistical  Account  of  Scot- 

*  Thus  the  Nonjuror  historian  land,  xV.  p.  85.  A  seventh  son  was 
Carte  relates  the  case  of  a  young  also  believed  to  have  the  power  of 
man  from  Bristol  named  Christopher  curing  scrofula  by  his  toucli.  See  a 
Level,  known  to  himself,  who  was  case  in  Sinclair's  Statistical  Ac- 
cured  by  the  Pretender  at  Paris  count  of  Scotland,  xiv.  210.  See  too 
in  1716  (Carte's  Hist,  of  England,  i.  Aubrey's  Miscellanies,  art.  Miranda. 

VOL.  1.  ly 


242      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  hi 

men  of  the  same  politics,  deliberating  in  common,  and  in  which 
each  member  is  responsible  to  the  others,  has  been  justly  de- 
scribed by  Lord  Macaulay  as  one  of  the  most  momentous  and  least 
noticed  consequences  of  the  Eevolution.  It  was  essential  to  the 
workino-  of  parliamentary  government,  and  it  was  scarcely  less 
important  as  abridging  the  influence  of  the  Crown.  As  long  as 
the  ministers  were  selected  by  the  sovereign  from  the  most 
opposite  parties,  as  long  as  each  was  responsible  only  for  his 
own  department,  and  was  perfectly  free  to  vote,  speak,  or 
intrigue  against  his  colleagues,  it  is  obvious  that  the  chief 
efficient  power  must  have  resided  with  the  sovereign.  When, 
however,  the  conduct  of  affairs  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a 
body  forming  a  coherent  whole,  bound  together  by  principle 
and  by  honoiur,  and  chosen  out  of  the  leaders  of  the  dominant 
party  in  Parliament,  the  chief  efficient  power  naturally  passed 
to  this  body,  and  to  the  party  it  represented.  Although,  in  tlie 
reign  of  William,  the  advice  of  Sunderland  and  the  exigen- 
cies of  public  affairs  had  induced  William  to  fall  back  upon 
government  by  a  single  party,  yet  he  never  renounced  his  pre- 
ference for  a  mixed  ministry,  composed  of  moderate  Whigs 
and  moderate  Tories  ;  during  almost  the  whole  of  his  reign  he 
succeeded,  in  some  degree,  in  attaining  it,  and  he  always  held  in 
his  own  hands  the  chief  direction  of  foreign  affairs.  His  suc- 
cessor, in  this  respect  at  least,  steadily  pursued  the  same  end, 
and  the  moderate  and  temporising  policy,  as  well  as  the  love  of 
power,  of  Grodolphin  and  Harley  assisted  in  perpetuating  the 
old  system.  The  first  ministry  of  Anne,  to  almost  the  close  of 
its  existence,  was  a  chequered  one,  and  although  at  last  the 
Whig  element  became  completely  predominant,  the  introduction 
of  the  Whig  junto  was  distasteful  to  Godolphin,  and  bitterly 
resented  by  the  Queen.  Her  letters  to  Godolphin,  when  the 
accession  of  Sunderland  to  the  ministry  had  become  inevitable, 
express  her  sentiments  on  the  subject  in  the  strongest  and 
clearest  light.  She  m-ged  that  the  appointment  would  be 
equivalent  to  throwing  herself  entirely  into  the  hands  of  a 
party;  that  it  was  the  object  of  her  life  to  retain  the  faculty  of 


CH.  n.  FORMATION   OF  A  MINISTRY.  243 

appointing  to  her  service  lionourable  and  useful  men  on  either 
side  ;  that  if  she  placed  the  direction  of  affairs  exclusively  in 
the  hands  either  of  "Whigs  or  Tories,  she  would  be  entirely 
their  slave,  the  quiet  of  her  life  would  be  at  an  end,  and  her 
sovereignty  would  be  no  more  than  a  name.^  On  the  over- 
throw of  Godolphin,  it  was  the  earnest  desire  both  of  Harley 
and  of  the  Queen  that  a  coalition  ministry  should  be  formed, 
in  which,  though  tlie  Tories  predominated,  they  should  not 
possess  a  monopoly  of  power.  Overtures  were  made  to  Somers 
and  Halifax  ;  and  Cowper  was  urgently  and  repeatedly  pressed 
by  the  Queen  to  retain  the  Great  Seal.^  The  refusal  of  the 
Whig  leaders  made  the  Government  essentially  Tory,  but,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  it  was  a  bitter  complaint  of  the  October 
Club  that  several  of  the  less  prominent  "Whigs  were  retained 
in  office,  and  the  habit  of  balancing  between  the  parties  still 
continued.  '  1*11  tell  you  one  great  state  secret,'  wrote  Swift 
to  Stella,  as  early  as  February  1710-11  ;  'the  Queen,  sensible 
how  much  she  was  governed  by  the  late  ministry,  runs  a 
little  into  t'other  extreme,  and  is  jealous  in  that  point,  even 
of  those  who  got  her  out  of  the  other's  hands.'  '  Her  plan,' 
said  a  well-informed  writer,  '  was  not  to  suffer  the  Tory  interest 
to  grow  too  strong,  but  to  keep  such  a  number  of  Whigs  still 
in  office  as  should  be  a  constant  check  upon  her  ministers.'  ^ 
Harley,  who  dreaded  the  extreme  Tories,  fidly  shared  her  view  ; 
he  was  always  open  to  overtures  from  the  "NMiigs,  and  it  was 
this  policy  which  at  last  produced  the  ministerial  crisis  that 
was  cut  short  by  the  death  of  the  Queen. 

With  the  new  reign  all  was  changed.  In  the  first  anxious 
month  after  the  accession  of  George  I.,  it  was  doubtfid  whether 
he  would  throw  himself  entirely  into  the  hands  of  the  Whigs, 

'  Coxe's  Marlhoroufjh,  cli.  li ,  lii.  into  the  heliariour  of  the  Queen's  last 

*  See  Onslow's  note  to  Burnet's  il/i«i^?^er«,  Swift  says  : 'She  had  enter- 
Own  Times,  ii.  553-554.  Campbell's  taiued  the  notion  of  forming  a  mode- 
lAves  of  the  Cliancellors  (5th  ed.),  v.  rate  or  comprehensive  scheme,  which 
274-277.  she  maintained  with  great  firmness, 

*  Sheridan's  Xj/<?  of  (Swj/f,  pp.  124-  nor  would  ever  depart  from,  until 
125.    In  a  tract  called  An  Enquiry  about  half  a  year  before  her  death.' 


244  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

or  whether,  by  bestowing  some  offices  on  the  Tories,  he  would 
make  an  effort  at  once  to  conciliate  his  opponents,  and  to  re- 
tain in  his  own  hands  a  substantial  part  of  the  direction  of 
affairs.  Every  step  in  his  policy,  however,  showed  that  he  was 
resolved  to  adopt  the  former  alternative,  and  the  Tories  soon 
learnt  to  realise  the  pathetic  truth  of  the  words  which  Boling- 
broke  wrote,  on  the  occasion  of  his  own  contemptuous  dismissal : 
'  The  grief  of  my  soul  is  this :  I  see  plainly  that  the  Tory  party 
is  gone.'  Halifax  appears  to  have  urged  the  appointment  of 
Sir  Thomas  Hanmer,  Bromley,  and  some  other  Tories,  to  high 
office  under  the  Crown  ;^  but  Townshend  and  Cowper,  with  a 
zeal  that  was  not  purely  disinterested,  pressed  upon  the  King 
the  impossibility  of  distributing  his  favours  equally  between  the 
parties,^  and,  with  the  exception  of  Nottingham,  who,  during 
the  latter  days  of  Queen  Anne,  had  completely  identified  him- 
self with  the  Whigs,  and  who  was  for  a  short  time  President  of 
the  Council,  all  Tories  were  excluded  from  the  management 
of  affairs.  It  was  urged  that,  in  the  very  critical  moment  of 
accession,  it  was  indispensable  that  the  King  should  be  served 
only  by  statesmen  on  whom  he  could  perfectly  rely  ;  that  the 
leaders  of  the  Tory  party  had  in  the  last  reign  been  deeply  im- 
plicated in  Jacobite  intrigues  ;  that  it  was  difficult  or  impossible 
to  say  how  far  Jacobitism  had  spread  among  them ;  that  a 
division  of  offices  would  be  sure  to  create  jealousy  and  dis- 
loyalty in  the  weaker  party,  and  to  enfeeble,  in  a  period  of  great 
danger,  the  policy  of  the  Government ;  that,  in  the  very  probable 
event  of  the  Pretender  becoming  Protestant,  the  House  of 
Brunswick  could  count  on  no  one  but  the  most  decided  Whigs. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  a  very  large  part  of  the 

*  Coxe's  Life  of  Walj)ole,  vol.  i.  p.  opposing  the  Tory  ministrj"-,  received 

60  (ed.  1798).   It  appears  that  offices,  a  place  in  the  Irish  treasury, 

but  apparently  sinecures,  were  offered  *  Campbell's  CJiancellors,   v.   293. 

to    and    refused    by    Hanmer    and  It  is   said    that,  among  his  German 

Bromley.      See     some     interesting  advisers,  Gortz    recommended   some 

letters  on  this  subject  in  Sir  H.  Bun-  favour  to  the  Tories,  but  Bemsdorf 

bury'sZi/efl/^ft?me?', pp.  53-56,60-61.  was  wholly  in  favour  of  the  "Whigs. 

Lord  Anglesey,  who,  though  a  Tory,  See  a  letter  of   Horace  Walpole  in 

had  followed  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer  in  Coxe's  Walpole,  ii.  48. 


CH.  II.  CONSOLIDATION   OF   WHIG   POWER.  245 

Stuart  sympathies  of  the  Tories  was  simply  due  to  a  fear  that 
the  new  Government  would  not  recognise  the  legitimate  claims 
of  the  party  to  a  fair  share  of  political  power,  and  it  is  equally 
certain  that  the  landed  gentry  and  the  clergy  in  England  were 
strongly  attached  to  that  party  and  were  bitterly  exasperated 
by  its  proscription.  It  was  not  forgotten  that  the  Act  of 
Settlement,  by  virtue  of  which  the  King  sat  on  the  throne,  was 
brought  in  by  a  Tory  statesman,  that  the  Peace  of  Utrecht, 
which  was  the  great  measure  of  the  Tory  ministry,  contained 
a  clause  compelling  the  French  sovereign  to  recognise  the 
Protestant  succession,  and  to  expel  the  Pretender  from  France, 
and  that  one  section  of  the  party,  under  the  guidance  of  Sir 
Thomas  Ilanmer,  had  never  wavered  in  its  attachment  to  the 
Act  of  Settlement.  On  the  death  of  the  Queen,  they  had  all, 
at  least  passively,  accepted  the  change  of  djmasty,  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  question  the  substantial  truth  of  the  assertion  of 
Bolingbroke,  that  the  proscription  of  the  Tories  by  George  I. 
for  the  first  time  made  the  party  entirely  Jacobite.'  But, 
whatever  may  have  been  its  effect  on  the  stability  of  the 
dynasty,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  effect  of  the  Whig  mono- 
poly of  office  on  the  authority  of  the  sovereign.  He  was  no 
longer  the  moderating  power,  holding  the  balance  in  a  hetero- 
geneous and  divided  Cabinet,  able  to  dismiss  a  statesman  of  one 
policy  and  to  employ  a  statesman  of  another,  and  thus  in  a  great 
measure  to  determine  the  tendency  of  the  Government.  He 
could  govern  only  through  a  political  body  which,  in  its  complete 
union  and  in  its  command  of  the  majority  in  Parliament,  was 
usually  able,  by  tlie  threat  of  joint  resignation,  which  would 

'  Letter    to     Windham.      This    is  Tentit'Te    ruinc    de    Icur   partj'-  que 

strongly  corroborated  by  a  letter  of  lb-  d'appeler  le  Pretendant ;   et  que   la 

erville  to  the  French  King,  written  on  guerre    avec   V.    M.   leur    paroissoit 

Oct.  24, 1714  (N.S.).     He  sa3's, '  Votre  absolument  necessaire  ])our  y  reussir. 

Majeste  a  vu  par   mes    prt-cedentes  J"ai  vu  claireiuent  que  ce  sentiment 

depeches  que    plusieurs   des    Tories  devenoit  chaque  jour   plus  commun 

qu'on   appelle   rigides,   c'est   a   dire  parmy  eux  et  qu'il  y  a  toute  apparence 

zelt'S  a  I'outrancepour  I'Eglise  Angli-  que  les  Tories   moderns  y  entreront 

cane  et  pour  ie  gouvernement   mo-  aussi  par  pur  z^le  de  partj--  mais  avec 

narchique,sont  devenus  Jacobites,  ne  plus  de  retenue.' — Bunbury's  Xi/e  of 

voyant    dautre  moyen  d"empescher  Sir  T.  Ilanmer,  pp.  60-GI. 


2-i6  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  ii. 

make  government  impossible,  to  dictate  its  own  terms.  The 
peculiarity  of  his  position  added  to  his  dependence.  His  throne 
was  exceedingly  insecure.  He  enjoyed  no  popularity,  and  he 
was  almost  Avholly  ignorant  of  the  language,  the  customs,  and 
the  domestic  policy  of  his  people.  His  predecessors  always 
presided  at  the  deliberations  of  the  Cabinet,  but  Greorge  I.,  on 
account  of  his  ignorance  of  the  language,  was  never  present, 
and  his  example  was  in  this  respect  followed  by  his  successors. 

In  this  manner,  by  the  force  of  events,  much  more  than  by 
any  express  restrictive  legislation,  a  profound  change  had  passed 
over  the  position  of  the  monarchy  in  England.  The  chief  power 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Whig  statesmen.  Nottingham,  who 
was  the  only  partial  exception,  having  exerted  himself  in  favour 
of  clemency  towards  the  noblemen  who  were  condemned  during 
the  rebellion,  was  dismissed  in  the  beginning  of  1716,^  and  the 
triumphant  party  made  it  their  main  task  to  consolidate  their 
ascendancy.  They  did  this  chiefly  in  two  ways.  They  steadily 
laboured  to  identify  the  Tory  party  witli  Jacobitism,  and  thus 
to  persuade  both  the  sovereign  and  the  people  that  a  Tory 
Government  meant  a  subversion  of  the  dynasty.  As  there 
was  absolutely  no  enthusiasm  for  the  reigning  sovereign,  the 
prospect  might  not  in  itself  appear  very  alarming,  but  it  was 
clearly  understood  that  the  downfall  of  the  dynasty  meant 
civil  war,  revolution,  and  perhaps  national  bankruptcy.  They 
also  began  systematically  to  build  up  a  vast  system  of  parlia- 
mentary influence.  The  wealth  of  the  great  Whig  houses,  the 
multitude  of  small  and  venal  boroughs,  the  increase  of  Grovern- 
ment  patronage,  and  the  Septennial  Act,  which,  by  prolonging 
the  duration  of  Parliament,  made  it  more  than  ever  amenable 
to  ministerial  influence,  enabled  them  to  cany  out  their  policy 
with  a  singular  completeness. 

The  condition  of  European  politics  greatly  assisted  them. 
The  chief  external  danger  to  the  dynasty  lay  in  the  hostility  of 
France,  but  this  hostility  was  now  for  a  long  period  removed. 

'  See,  on  this  dismissal,  Robert  Walpole  to  Horace  Walpole,  March  6, 1715- 
16. — Coxe's  Walj)ole,  ii.  51. 


cu.  II.  THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  247 

The  Eegent  from  the  first  had  leaned  somewhat  towards  the 
English  alliance,  and  after  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion  of 
1715  he  took  decided  steps  in  this  direction.  He  had,  indeed, 
the  strongest  personal  interest  in  doing  so.  The  young  prince, 
who  was  his  ward,  and  who  was  the  undoubted  heir  to  the 
throne,  was  so  weak  and  sickly  that  his  death  might  at  any 
time  be  expected.  In  that  case  the  crown,  according  to  the 
provisions  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  devolved  upon  the  Regent, 
but  it  was  extremely  probable  that  Philip  of 'Spain  would  claim 
it,  in  spite  of  the  act  by  which  he  had  renounced  his  title.  The 
succession  of  the  Regent  would  then  be  in  the  utmost  danger.  It 
was  possible  that  Philip,  inspired  by  the  daring  genius  of  Albe- 
roni,  who  was  now  rising  rapidly  to  ascendancy  in  his  coun- 
cils, would  endeavour  to  unite  under  one  sceptre  the  dominions 
both  of  France  and  of  Spain.  In  that  case  a  European  war 
was  inevitable,  but  it  would  be  a  war  in  which  the  whole 
national  sentiment  of  France  would  be  opposed  to  the  Regent, 
who  was  personally  impopular,  and  who  would  be  an  obstacle  to 
the  most  cherished  dream  of  French  ambition.  It  was  possible 
also,  and  perhaps  more  probable,  that  Philip  would  endeavour 
merely  to  exchange  the  throne  of  Spain  for  that  of  France.  If 
he  abdicated  in  favour  of  a  prince  who  was  acceptable  to  the 
Powers  who  had  been  allied  in  the  last  war,  the  great  object  of 
the  Whig  party  in  the  reign  of  Anne  would  be  realised  ;  and  it 
was  therefore  by  no  means  improbable  that  the  allied  Powers 
would  favour  his  attempt.  If  England  could  be  induced  un- 
equivocally to  guarantee  the  succession  of  the  House  of  Orleans, 
if  the  Whig  Government  of  George  I.  would  in  this  respect  at 
least  cordially  adopt  the  policy  of  the  Tory  ministry  which 
negotiated  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  it  was  clear  that  the  prospects 
of  the  Regent  would  be  immensely  improved.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  reasons  inducing  the  English  Government  to  seek  a 
French  alliance  were  at  least  equally  strong.  France  could  do 
more  than  all  other  Powers  combined  to  shake  the  d3'nasty,  and 
as  long  as  the  Jacobite  party  could  look  forward  to  her  support 
it  would  never  cease  to  be  powerful.     Besides  this,  an  English 


248  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

guarantee  might  so  strengthen  the  House  of  Orleans  as  to  pre- 
vent another  European  war,  and  avert  the  danger  of  the  union 
of  the  two  crowns.  Hanoverian  politics  had  also  begun  to 
colour  all  Enolish  negotiations,  and  a  great  coldness  which  had 
sprung  up  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Hanoverian  Govern- 
ment on  account  of  the  claims  of  the  latter  to  Bremen  and 
Verden,  helped  to  incline  George  towards  a  French  rather  than 
an  Austrian  alliance.  There  was  also  a  dangerous  question 
pending  between  England  and  France,  which  it  might  be  pos- 
sible amicably  to  arrange.  The  Peace  of  Utrecht  had  stipulated 
that  the  harbour  of  Dunkirk  should  be  destroyed,  and  the  injury 
that  had  been  done  to  British  commerce  by  the  privateers  which 
issued  from  that  harbour  was  so  great  that  scarcely  any  pro- 
vision in  the  treaty  was  equally  popular.  It  had  been  in  a  great 
degree  fulfilled,  but  the  French  Lad  proceeded  to  nullify  it  by 
constructing  a  new  canal  on  the  same  coast  at  Mardyke.  The 
destruction  of  this  incipient  harbour  became  in  consequence 
one  of  the  strongest  desires  of  the  English. 

These  various  considerations  drew  together  the  Powers  which 
had  so  long  been  deadly  enemies.  The  negotiation  was  chiefly 
conducted  at  Hanover  by  Stanhope  on  the  side  of  England,  and 
by  Dubois  on  that  of  P'rance,  and  it  resulted  in  a  treaty  which 
gave  an  entirely  new  turn  to  the  foreign  policy  of  England.  By 
this  treaty  the  Eegent  agreed  to  break  altogether  with  the  Pre- 
tender, to  compel  him  to  reside  beyond  the  Alps,  and  to  destroy 
the  new  port  at  Mardyke,  while  both  Powers  confirmed  and 
guaranteed  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  and  particularly  the  order  of 
the  succession  to  the  crowns  of  England  and  France  which  it 
established.  Thus,  by  a  singular  vicissitude  of  politics,  it  was 
the  Whig  party  which  was  now  the  most  anxious  to  ally  itself 
with  France  in  the  interest  of  that  Protestant  succession  which 
Lewis  XIV.  had  so  bitterly  opposed.  The  States-General  some- 
what reluctantly  acceded  to  the  treaty,  which  was  finally  con- 
cluded in  January  1716-17. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  overrate  the  value  of  this  alliance  to 
the  new  dynasty  and  to  the  Whig  party.  It  paralysed  the  efforts 


CH.  n.  FOREIGN   DIFFICULTIES.  249 

of  the  Jacobites,  and  it  was  especially  important  as  tlie  aspect 
of  Europe  was  still  in  many  respects  disquieting.  The  Emperor, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  prolonged  the  war  unsuccessfully  for  some 
months  after  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  and  though  hostilities  were 
terminated  by  the  peace  which  was  negotiated  at  liastadt,  and 
finally  ratified  at  Baden  in  September  1714,  there  were  still 
serious  questions  to  be  settled.  One  of  the  most  important  re- 
sidts  of  the  war  was  the  transfer  of  the  Spanisli  Netherlands  to 
the  Emperor.  It  was  a  measure  which  William  had  regarded 
as  of  transcendant  importance  in  securing  Holland  from  the 
aggression  of  France,  and  it  was  accordingly  given  a  prominent 
place  among  the  objects  of  the  great  treaty  of  alliance  of  1701.^ 
It  was,  however,  the  determination  both  of  the  Dutch  and  of  tlie 
English  that  this  cession  should  be  conditional  upon  the  Dutch 
retaining  the  right  of  garrisoning  a  line  of  border  fortresses  in 
Spanish  Flanders,  and  this  privilege  was  very  displeasing  to 
the  Emperor.  The  barrier  treaty  of  1709  had  been  negotiated 
between  England  and  Holland  without  his  assent.  The  Peace 
of  Utrecht  had,  indeed,  restored  to  France  some  towns  which 
the  earlier  treaty  had  reserved  for  the  Dutch  barrier,  but,  to  the 
great  indignation  of  the  Emperor,  it  provided  that  such  a  bar- 
rier should  be  secured.  As  the  war  was  still  going  on,  France, 
in  accordance  with  the  treaty,  surrendered  the  Spanish  Nether- 
lands provisionally  to  Holland,  to  be  transferred  by  her  to 
Austria,  as  soon  as  peace  should  have  been  restored  and  the 
conditions  and  limits  of  the  barrier  arranged.  A  long,  tedious, 
and  irritating  negotiation  ensued  between  the  Dutch  and  the 
Emperor,  but  it  was  at  last,  chiefly  through  English  mediation, 
concluded  in  November  1715.  The  treaty  which  was  then  signed, 
and  confirmed  by  England,  gave  Holland  the  exclusive  right  of 
garrisoning  Namur,  Tournay,  Menin,  Furnes,  Warneton,  Ypres, 
and  the  fort  of  Knocke.  The  garrison  of  Dendermonde  was  to 
be  a  joint  one.  A  sum  of  500,000  crowns,  levied  on  what  were 
now  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  was  to  be  annually  paid  by  the 
Emperor  to  the  Dutch  for  the  support  of  the  Dutch  garrisons  in 

'  Art  V. 


250  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  CH.  n. 

the  barrier  towns,  and  several  provisions  were  made  regulating 
the  number  of  the  troops  to  be  maintained,  the  municipal  ar- 
rangements, and  the  religious  liberty  to  be  conceded.  To  the 
Emperor,  who  claimed  an  absolute  right  over  the  whole  Spanish 
dominions,  this  arrangement  was  very  irksome,  and  there  was  a 
strono-  ill-feeling  between  the  Austrians  and  the  Dutch,  which 
by  no  means  subsided  on  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty.  A 
divided  sovereignty  almost  necessarily  led  to  constant  difficulties. 
One  of  the  Powers  was  despotic,  the  other  was  rather  notoriously 
minute  and  pimctilious  in  its  exactions.  There  were  violent 
disputes  between  the  inhabitants  of  the  newly  annexed  territory 
and  the  Dutch  on  the  question  of  commercial  privileges.  There 
were  disputes  about  the  frontiers.  There  were  bitter  complaints 
of  the  subsidy  to  the  Dutch,  and  it  was  found  necessary  for  the 
three  Powers  to  make  another  convention,  which  was  executed 
in  December  1718,  and  which  in  several  small  details  modified 
the  treaty  of  1715. 

Another  and  a  much  more  serious  danger  arose  from  the 
relations  between  Austria  and  Spain.  We  have  seen  that  when 
the  Emperor  at  the  time  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  resolved  to 
continue  the  war,  he  determined,  if  possible,  to  contract  its 
limits  to  the  Rhine ;  and  he  accordingly  concluded  with  Eng- 
land and  France  a  treaty  of  neutrality  for  Spain,  Italy,  and  the 
Low  Countries,  and  withdrew  the  Austrian  troops  from  Cata- 
lonia and  the  islands  of  Majorca  and  Ivica.  The  short  war  that 
ensued  was  a  war  with  France,  and  the  Peace  of  Baden  was 
negotiated  between  the  Emperor  and  the  French  King,  but  no 
formal  peace  had  ever  been  established  between  the  Emperor 
and  the  King  of  Spain.  The  Emperor  still  refused  to  recognise 
the  title  of  Philip  to  the  Spanish  throne.  Philip  still  main- 
tained his  claims  to  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  the  Milanese,  and 
the  Spanish  Netherlands,  which  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  had  trans- 
ferred to  Austria.  War  might  at  any  time  break  out,  and  the 
chief  yjledge  of  peace  lay  in  the  exhaustion  of  both  belligerent 
parties,  in  the  difficulties  in  which  the  Emperor  was  involved 
with  the  Turks,  and  in  the  guarantees  which  England,  France, 


CH.  II.  FOREIGN  DIFFICULTIES.  251 

and  Holland  bad  given  for  tlie  maintenance  of  the  cliief  arrange- 
ments of  the  peace.  In  May  1716  when  the  relations  between 
England  and  France  were  still  uncertain,  a  defensive  alliance 
had  been  contracted  between  England  and  the  Emperor,  by  whicli 
each  Power  guaranteed  the  dominions  of  the  other  in  case  of  an 
attack  by  any  Power  except  the  Turks,  and,  by  an  additional  and 
secret  article  subsequently  signed,  each  Power  agreed  to  expel 
from  its  territory  the  rebel  subjects  of  the  other.  Of  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  one  of  the  most  obnoxious 
to  the  Emperor  was  that  which  made  the  Duke  of  Savoy  King 
of  Sicily,  with  reversion  of  the  kingdom  of  Spain  in  the  event 
of  a  failure  of  male  issue  of  Philip.  The  Austrian  statesmen 
maintained  that  the  kingdom  of  Naples  never  would  be  secure 
so  long  as  Sicily  was  in  the  hands  of  a  foreign  and  perhaps 
a  hostile  Power ;  and  they  soon  engaged  in  secret  negotiations 
with  England  and  France  to  induce  or  compel  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
to  exchange  Sicily  for  Sardinia.  The  project  became  known, 
and  both  the  Duke  of  Savoy  and  the  King  of  Spain  were  de- 
termined to  resist  it.  On  the  other  hand,  a  strange  transform- 
ation had  passed  over  the  spirit  and  tendency  of  the  Spanish 
Government.  The  first  wife  of  Philip,  who  was  a  daughter  of 
the  Duke  of  Savoy,  died  in  February  1714-15,  and,  a  few  months 
after,  the  King  married  Elizabeth  Farnese,  the  young  Princess 
of  Parma — a  bold  and  aspiring  woman,  who  was  bitterly  hostile 
to  the  Austrian  dominion  in  Italy,  and  who  had  some  claims  to 
the  succession  of  Parma,  Placentia,  and  Tuscany.  The  sove- 
reign of  the  first  two  Duchies  had  no  son.  The  Queen  of  Spain 
was  his  niece,  and  she  claimed  the  succession  as  a  family  in- 
heritance, but  her  title  was  disputed  by  both  the  Emperor  and 
the  Pope.  The  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  had  a  son,  but  this  son 
was  without  issue,  and  was  separated  from  his  wife,  and  the  suc- 
cession was  claimed  by  Elizabeth  Farnese,  by  the  Emperor,  and 
by  the  wife  of  the  Elector  Palatine.  The  anxiety  of  the  Spanish 
Queen  to  claim  this  inheritance  was  greatly  intensified  by  the 
birth  of  a  son.  She  soon  obtained  an  absolute  dominion  over 
the  mind  of  the  King,  and  lier  own  policy  was  completely  go- 


252  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

verned  by  an  Italian  priest,  who,  probably,  only  needed  some- 
what more  favourable  circumstances  to  have  played  a  part  in  the 
world  in  no  degree  inferior  to  that  of  Eichelieu  or  Chatham. 

Cardinal  Alberoni  is  one  of  the  most  striking  of  the  many 
examples  of  the  great  value  of  the  Roman  Catholic  ecclesiasti- 
cal organisation  in  forming  a  ladder  by  which  men  of  genius 
can  climb  from  the  lowest  positions  to  great  dignity  and  in- 
fluence. The  son  of  a  very  poor  and  very  illiterate  gardener  at 
Placentia,  he  was  born  in  1664,  was  taught  to  read  and  write 
by  the  charity  of  a  parish  priest,  and  having  entered  the  order 
of  the  Barnabites  and  passed  through  the  lowest  forms  of  eccle- 
siastical drudgery,  he  was  at  length,  with  considerable  difficult}^, 
raised  to  the  priesthood,  and  became  in  time  chaplain  to  the 
bishop  of  his  diocese,  and  canon  in  its  cathedral.  By  the  friend- 
ship of  another  bishop  he  was  brought  to  the  Court  of  the 
reigning  Duke  of  Parma,  where  he  was  introduced  in  1702 
to  the  Duke  of  Yendome,  who  was  then  commanding  the 
French  army  in  Italy,  and  whose  warm  attachment  laid  the 
foimdation  of  his  future  success.  Few  men  without  any  ad- 
vantage either  of  birth  or  fortune  have  ever  risen  to  great  poli- 
tical eminence  without  drinking  deeply  of  the  cup  of  moral 
humiliation  ;  and  St.  Simon,  whose  aristocratic  leanings  made 
him  regard  the  low-born  adventurer  with  peculiar  malevolence, 
assures  us,  probably  with  some  truth,  that  Alberoni  first  won 
the  favour  of  Yendome  by  gross  sycophancy  and  buffoonery. 
His  small  round  figure,  surmounted  by  a  head  of  wholly  dis- 
proportioned  size,  gave  him  at  first  sight  a  burlesque  appear- 
ance. His  language'  and  habits  were  very  coarse,  and  he 
possessed  to  the  highest  degree  the  supple  and  insinuating  man- 
ners, the  astute  judgment,  the  patient,  flexible,  and  intriguing 
temperament  of  his  country  and  of  his  profession.  But  with 
these  qualities  he  combined  others  of  a  very  different  order. 
He  was  the  most  skilful,  laborious,  and  devoted  of  servants. 
His  imagination  teemed  with  grand  and  daring  projects,  and 
in  energy  of  action  and  genius  of  organisation  very  few  states- 
men have  equalled  him.     For   a   time  everything   seemed  to 


en.  n.  ALBERONI.  253 

smile  upon  him.  He  was  employed  by  the  Duke  of  Parma  in 
negotiations  with  the  Emperor.  He  was  presented  by  Yeudome 
to  Lewis  XIV.  He  obtained  a  French  pension  ;  he  accompanied 
Vendome  in  his  brilliant  Spanish  campaign  ;  he  became  the 
envoy  of  tlie  Duke  of  Parma  at  the  Spanish  Court,  and  having 
taken  a  leading  part  in  negotiating  the  second  marriage  of  the 
King,  he  acquired  a  comjilete  ascendancy  over  the  Queen  and 
directed  Spanisli  policy  for  some  time  before  he  became  osten- 
sibly Prime  Minister  of  Spain.  His  whole  soul  was  filled  with 
a  passionate  desire  to  free  his  native  country  from  Austrian 
thraldom,  to  raise  Spain  from  the  chronic  decrepitude  and 
debility  into  which  she  had  sunk,  and  to  make  her,  once  more, 
the  Spain  of  Isabella  and  of  Charles  V.  Tlie  task  was  a  Her- 
culean one,  for  the  national  spirit  had  been  for  generations 
steadily  declining.  The  finances  were  all  but  ruined,  and 
corruption,  maladministration,  and  superstition  had  corroded 
all  the  energies  of  the  State.  The  firm  hand  of  a  great  states- 
man was,  however,  soon  felt  in  every  department.  Amid  a 
storm  of  unpopularity,  corrupt  and  ostentatious  expenditure  was 
rigidly  cut  down.  The  nobles  and  clergy  were  compelled  to 
contribute  their  share  to  taxation  ;  the  army  was  completely  re- 
organised ;  a  new  and  powerful  navy  was  created.  Pampeluna, 
Barcelona,  Cadiz,  Ferrol,  and  several  minor  strongholds  were 
strengthened.  The  numerous  internal  custom-houses,  which 
restricted  inland  trade,  were,  with  some  violence  to  local  cus- 
toms and  to  provincial  privileges,  summarily  abolished.  The 
lucrative  monopoly  of  tobacco,  which  had  been  alienated  from 
the  State,  and  grossly  abused,  was  resumed.  Great  pains  were 
taken  to  revive  agriculture  and  extend  manufactures ;  in  spite 
of  the  national  hostility  to  heretics,  Dutch  manufacturers,  and 
even  English  dyers,  were  brought  over  to  Spain ;  and  the  im- 
provement effected  was  so  rapid  that  Alberoni  boasted,  with 
much  reason,  that  five  years  of  peace  would  be  sufficient  to  raise 
Spain  to  an  equality  with  the  greatest  nations  of  the  earth. 

At  first  he  was  very  favourable  to  the   English  alliance, 
and  through  his  influence  an  advantageous  commercial  treaty 


254  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

was  negotiated  between  England  an4  Spain  in  1715.  Soon, 
however,  the  two  Governments  rapidly  diverged.  The  treaty 
of  mutual  defence,  made  between  the  Emperor  and  England 
in  1716,  was  a  great  blow  to  Spanish  policy,  and  the  Triple 
Alliance  in  the  following  year  was  a  still  greater  one.  An  at- 
tempt to  expel  the  Austrians  from  Italy  without  the  assistance 
of  France,  and  in  the  face  of  the  hostility  of  England,  appeared 
hopeless.  Alberoni  would  have  at  least  postponed  the  enter- 
prise, but  his  hand  was  forced.  He  was  surrounded  with  ene- 
mies, and  could  only  maintain  his  position  by  constant  address 
and  audacity.  The  Queen,  on  whom  he  mainly  depended, 
wished  for  war.  The  proceedings  of  the  Emperor  about  Sicily, 
and  the  arrest  of  the  Grand  Inquisitor  of  Spain  on  his  journey 
through  Milan,  exasperated  the  Spanish  Court ;  and  the  Turkish 
war,  which  had  recently  broken  out,  seemed  to  furnish  a  favour- 
able opportunity.  In  1715  the  Turks,  on  the  most  frivolous 
pretexts,  had  broken  the  Peace  of  Carlowitz,  had  declared  war 
with  the  Venetians,  Lad  conquered  the  Morea,  and  laid  siege 
to  Corfu,  and  the  Emperor,  having  drawn  the  sword  in  defence 
of  his  ally,  the  war  was  now  raging  in  Hungary.  The  position 
of  Alberoni  at  this  time  became  a  very  difficult  one.  The  Pope 
was  summoning  all  Catholic  Powers  to  the  defence  of  Christen- 
dom, and  threatened  severe  spiritual  penalties  against  all  who 
attacked  the  Emperor  while  engaged  in  the  holy  war.  Alberoni 
was  himself  a  priest,  and  he  was  at  the  head  of  a  nation  which 
was  passionately  superstitious,  and  beyond  all  others  the  here- 
ditary enemy  of  the  Mohammedan.  He  accordingly  professed 
himself  ready  to  assist  in  the  defence  of  the  Christian  interests, 
made  great  naval  preparations  ostensibly  for  that  purpose,  and 
obtained  his  Cardinal's  hat  chiefly  by  a  show  of  zeal  in  the 
cause,  but  at  the  same  time  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  was 
secretly  both  encouraging  and  aiding  Turkish  invasion.  His 
hopes,  however,  were  in  a  great  degree  disappointed.  Schu- 
lenburg,  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  military  adventurers  who  in 
the  eighteenth  century  lent  their  services  in  succession  to  many 
different  nations,  commanded  the  Venetians  at  Corfu,  and  after 


CH.  n.  ALBERONI.  255 

a  terrible  siege,  and  in  spite  of  prodigies  of  undisciplined 
valour,^  the  Turks  were  obliged  to  abandon  their  enterprise  with 
the  loss  of  about  1 7,000  men,  of  56  cannon,  of  all  their  maga- 
zines and  tents.  Nearly  at  the  same  time,  Eugene,  at  the  head 
of  an  army  far  inferior  in  numbers  to  that  of  the  enemy,  com- 
pletely routed  them  in  the  great  battle  of  Peterwardein,  drove 
them  beyond  the  frontier  of  Hungary,  secured  the  possession  of 
the  Banat,  and  laid  siege  to  Belgrade.  The  Austrian  forces 
were,  however,  for  a  considerable  time  arrested,  and  at  the  time 
when  the  Spaniards  began  their  contest,  a  considerable  propor- 
tion of  them  were  employed  in  that  quarter.  Alberoni  at  the 
same  time  was  indefatigable  in  efforts  to  raise  up  allies,  or  to 
paralyse  the  Powers  wliich  were  hostile  to  him.  He  obtained  a 
promise  of  assistance  from  the  Duke  of  Savoy  by  offering  him 
the  Milanese  instead  of  Sicily.  He  intrigued  alike  with  the 
discontented  party  in  Hungary,  in  Naples,  and  in  the  Cevennes. 
He  met  the  hostility  of  the  Eegent  by  reviving  the  claims  of 
Philip  to  the  eventual  succession  of  the  French  crown,  and  sup- 
porting the  party  of  the  Duke  of  Maine,  who  was  opposed  to 
the  Eegent  and  to  the  English  alliance,  and  who  desired  to  follow 
the  policy  of  Lewis  XIV.  He  endeavoiured  to  intimidate  Eng- 
land into  neutrality  by  suspending  the  commercial  privileges 
that  had  been  granted  her,  and  by  threatening  to  support  the 
Jacobite  cause  with  a  Spanish  army. 

Another  and  still  more  gigantic  project,  if  it  was  not  origin- 
ated, was  at  least  warmly  supported  by  him.  The  North  of  Europe 
had  long  been  convulsed  by  the  contest  between  Charles  XII.  of 
Sweden  and  Peter  the  Great,  the  two  most  ambitious  monarchs 
of  the  age.  Goertz,  the  minister  of  the  former — a  bold,  ad- 
venturous, and  unscrupulous  man — now  conceived  the  idea  of 
negotiating  a  peace  and  an  alliance  between  these  two  sovereigns, 
and  of  making  them  the  arbiters  of  the  North.  In  order  to 
make  this  peace  it  was  necessary  for  Charles  to  relinquish  to 

'  '  II  ne  manque  a  ces  gens-la  que      to  Ijcibnitz.     Kemble's  State  Paj/ers, 
I'ordreet  la  discipline  militaire  et  ils       p.  540. 
nous  battroient   tous,' — Schuleubero' 


256  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  CH.  n. 

Russia  the  Baltic  provinces  which  had  so  long  been  in  dispute, 
but  he  could  obtain  compensations  on  the  side  of  Denmark, 
Norway,  and  Germany,  and  he  could  gratify  his  long-continued 
resentment  against  the  King  of  Poland  and  the  Elector  of 
Hanover.  His  animosity  against  the  latter  dates  from  the  time 
when  George,  without  provocation,  had  joined  the  confedera- 
tion against  him,  and  had  annexed  to  his  German  dominions 
Bremen  and  Verden.  On  other  grounds  the  Czar  fully  shared 
his  hatred  of  the  English  King.  George  had  watched  with  great 
and  unconcealed  jealousy  the  incursions  of  the  Czar  into  Ger- 
many, and  his  growing  power  on  the  Baltic.  He  had  prevented, 
by  the  threat  of  war,  a  Eussian  expedition  against  INIecklen- 
buro-  in  1716,  and  he  had  refused  to  permit  a  canal,  from  which 
the  Czar  expected  great  commercial  advantages,  to  pass  through 
a  small  part  of  his  German  dominions.  Through  combined 
motives  of  policy  and  resentment,  the  Czar  lent  a  willing  ear 
to  the  project  of  the  Swedish  minister,  while  Charles  threw 
himself  into  it  with  characteristic  ardour.  His  plan  was  to 
wrest  from  Denmark  and  Hanover  the  conquests  they  had  made, 
to  ruin  the  Hanoverian  power,  to  replace  Augustus  by  Stanis- 
laus on  the  throne  of  Poland,  to  invade  England  or  Scotland  in 
person  with  a  Swedish  army  transported  in  Russian  ships,  and 
to  change  the  whole  tenour  of  English  policy  by  a  restoration  of 
the  Stuarts.  It  was  a  scheme  well  fitted  to  fascinate  that  wild 
imagination,  and  it  was  full  of  danger  to  England.  A  very 
small  army  of  disciplined  soldiers  would  probably  have  turned 
the  «cale  against  the  Government  in  1715,  and  Charles  was  a 
great  master  of  the  art  of  war,  and  he  was  free  from  the  taint 
of  Catholicism,  which  in  general  so  fatally  weakened  the  Jacobite 
cause.  The  great  difficulty  lay  in  the  poverty  of  the  two  sove- 
reigns ;  but  Alberoni,  whose  influence  was  actively  employed 
in  promoting  the  alliance,  strained  every  nerve  to  supply  the 
funds.  Peter,  in  a  journey  to  France,  tried  to  induce  France 
to  join  against  England,  but  the  Regent  was  steadily  loyal  to 
the  English  alliance,  and  it  is  said  to  have  been  through  his 
spies  that  the  English  ministers  were  first  informed  of  the  plot 


CH.  n.  THE  NORTHERN   CONFEDERATION.  257 

that  was  preparing.  Letters  were  intercepted,  which  disclosed 
the  design.  The  Government  promptly  arrested  Gyllenborg, 
tlie  Swedish  ambassador  at  St.  James's,  while,  at  the  instigation 
of  England,  the  Dutch  arrested  Goertz,  who  was  in  Holland 
concocting  the  plans  of  the  future  expedition.  The  Spanish 
ambassador  protested  against  these  proceedings  as  a  violation 
of  the  laws  of  nations,  but  the  letters  found  in  the  possession 
of  Gyllenborg  furnished  such  decisive  evidence  that  no  other 
Power  joined  him.  The  Czar,  who  was  not  implicated  in  the 
correspondence,  protested  his  friendship  to  England.  The  King 
of  Sweden  took  refuge  in  a  haughty  silence,  but  retaliated  by 
throwing  the  English  envoy  into  prison.  The  disclosure  of  the 
plot  rendered  its  execution  more  difficult,  but  by  no  means 
averted  the  danger  wliich,  partly  through  the  intrigues  of 
Alberoni,  hung  over  the  fortunes  of  England. 

The  arrest  of  the  Swedish  ambassador  took  place  on  January 
29,  1716-17.  In  the  following  summer  a  Spanish  fleet  sailed 
from  Barcelona.  Though  its  destination  was  uncertain,  it  was 
most  generally  believed  that  it  was  intended  to  act  against  the 
Turks,  and  all  Europe  was  startled  to  hear  that  on  August  22 
(N.S.)  it  had  swept  down  upon  Sardinia,  that  a  large  body  of 
Spanish  troops  had  landed  and  invested  Cagliari,  and  that  they 
were  advancing  rapidly  in  the  conquest  of  the  island.  After  about 
two  months  of  hard  fighting  the  conquest  was  achieved,  and  the 
Austrian  flag  had  everywhere  disappeared.  The  perplexity  of  the 
Great  Powers  was  very  serious.  Though  no  peace  had  been  made 
between  the  Emperor  and  the  Spanish  King,  hostilities  had 
been  dormant  and  the  act  of  Alberoni  kindled  a  new  war.  The 
Pope  strongly  denounced  the  conduct  of  a  statesman  who 
attacked  a  Christian  Power  while  engaged  in  wars  with 
Mohammedans.  England  had  guaranteed  the  Austrian  domi- 
nions in  Italy,  and,  supported  by  France  and  Holland,  slie  laboured 
earnestly  to  bring  about  a  definite  peace  between  the  Empire 
and  Spain.  Alberoni  consented  to  negotiate,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  actively  armed.  Statesmen  who  had  looked  upon  the 
Spanish  power  as  almost  effete,  saw  with  bewilderment  the  new 

VOL.  I.  •     18 


258  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

forces  that  seemed  to  start  into  life,  as  beneath  the  enchanter's 
wand.  A  fleet  such  as  Spain  had  hardly  equalled  since  the 
destruction  of  the  Armada  was  equipped,  Catalonia  had  been 
hitherto  bitterly  hostile  to  the  Bourbon  dynasty,  but  Alberoni 
boldly  threw  himself  upon  the  patriotism  and  the  martial  ardour 
of  its  people,  summoned  them  around  the  Spanish  flag,  and  formed 
six  new  regiments  of  the  Catalonian  mountaineers.  Many  years 
later  the  elder  Pitt  dealt  in  a  precisely  similar  way  with  the 
Jacobite  clans  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  and  the  success  of 
this  measure  is  justly  regarded  as  one  of  the  great  proofs  of  the 
high  quality  of  his  statesmanship.  By  a  skilful  and  strictly  honest 
management  of  the  finances,  by  a  rigid  economy  in  all  the 
branches  of  unnecessary  expenditure,  it  was  found  possible  to 
make  the  most  formidable  preparations  without  imposing  any 
very  serious  additional  burden  upon  the  people,  wlule  at  the 
same  time  Spanish  diplomacy  was  active  and  powerful  from 
Stockholm  to  Constantinople. 

Hitherto  fortune  had  for  the  most  part  favoured  Alberoni, 
but  the  scale  now  turned,  and  a  long  succession  of  calamities 
blasted  his  prospects.  His  design  was  to  pass  at  once  from 
Sardinia  into  the  kingdom  of  Naples  in  conjunction  with  the 
new  sovereign  of  Sicily ;  but,  within  a  few  days  of  the  landing  of 
the  Spaniards  in  Sardinia,  Eugene  had  completely  defeated  the 
Turks  in  a  great  battle  at  Belgrade,  and  the  capture  of  that  town 
enabled  the  Emperor  to  secm-e  Naples  by  a  powerful  reinforce- 
ment. The  defection  of  the  King  of  Sicily  speedily  followed. 
The  whole  career  of  Victor  Amadeus  had  been  one  of  sagacious 
treachery,  and,  without  decisively  abandoning  the  Spaniards 
or  committing  himself  to  the  Austrians,  he  was  now  secretly 
negotiating  with  the  Emperor.  Alberoni  knew  or  suspected 
the  change,  and  met  it  with  equal  art  and  with  superior  energy. 
He  still  professed  a  warm  friendship  for  the  Savoy  prince.  A 
Spanish  fleet  of  22  ships  of  the  line  with  more  than  300  trans- 
ports, and  carrying  no  less  than  33,000  men,  was  now  afloat 
in  the  Mediterranean;  and,  at  a  time  when  Victor  Amadeus 
imagined  it  was  about  to  descend  upon  Naples,  it  unexpectedly 


I 


CH.  n.  QUADRUPLE   ALLIANCE.  259 

attacked  Sicily,  which  was  left  almost  undefended,  and  a  Spanish 
army,  under  the  command  of  the  Marquis  of  Lede,  captured 
Palermo,  and  speedily  overran  almost  the  whole  island.  This, 
however,  was  the  last  gleam  of  success.  In  July  1718,  the  very 
month  in  which  the  Spaniards  landed  in  Sicily,  the  war  between 
the  Austrians  and  the  Turks  was  concluded,  chiefly  through 
English  mediation,  by  the  Peace  of  Passarowitz ;  the  Austrian 
frontier  was  extended  far  into  Servia  and  Wallachia,  and 
the  whole  Austrian  forces  were  liberated.  England  had  long 
been  negotiating  in  order  to  obtain  peace  in  Italy,  or,  failing 
in  this  end,  to  form  an  alliance  which  would  overpower  the  ag- 
gressor, and  she  succeeded  in  at  least  attaining  the  latter  end 
by  inducing  Austria  and  France  to  join  her  in  what,  under  the 
expectation  of  the  accession  of  the  Dutch,  was  called  the 
Quadruple  Alliance,  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  Peace 
of  Utrecht,  and  guaranteeing  the  tranquillity  of  Europe.  It 
was  concluded  in  the  beginning  of  July  but  not  signed  till  the 
beginning  of  August.  By  this  most  important  measure,  the  Em- 
peror at  last  reluctantly  agreed  to  renounce  his  pretensions  to  the 
kingdom  of  Spain,  and  to  all  other  parts  of  the  Spanish  dominions 
recognised  as  such  by  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  Tuscany,  Parma, 
and  Placentia  were  acknowledged  to  be  male  fiefs  of  the  Empire, 
but  the  Emperor  engaged  that  their  sovereignty,  on  the  death  of 
the  reigning  princes,  should  pass  to  Don  Carlos,  the  son  of  the 
Spanish  Queen  and  to  his  successors,  subject  to  the  reservation  of 
Leghorn  as  a  free  port,  and  also  to  the  condition  that  the  crowns 
of  these  Duchies  should  never  pass  to  the  sovereign  of  Spain.  To 
secure  the  succession  of  Don  Carlos,  Swiss  garrisons,  paid  by  the 
three  contracting  or  mediating  Powers,  were  to  be  placed  in  the 
chief  towns.  On  the  other  hand,  Philip  was  to  be  compelled  to 
renounce  his  pretensions  to  the  Netherlands,  to  the  two  Sicilies, 
and  to  the  Duchy  of  ]Milan  ;  Victor  Amadeus  was  to  cede  Sicily 
to  the  Emperor  in  exchange  for  Sardinia,  while,  as  a  compensa- 
tion for  the  sacrifice  thus  made,  the  Emperor  acknowledged  the 
succession  of  the  House  of  Savoy  to  the  Spanish  throne,  in  the 
event  of  the  failure  of  the  issue  of  Philip.     The  contracting 


260  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ii. 

Powers  agreed  by  separate  and  secret  articles  that  if  in  three 
months  the  sovereigns  of  Spain  and  Sicily  did  not  notify  their 
assent  to  these  conditions,  the  whole  force  of  the  allied  poten- 
tates was  to  be  employed  against  them,  and  that  even  within 
this  interval  they  would  support  the  Emperor  if  any  attack  was 
made  on  his  Italian  dominions. 

The  very  favourable  terms  which  were  offered  by  this  alliance 
to  the  Spanish  Government  show  how  formidable  the  situation 
had  become.  The  English  Government,  at  the  advice  of  Stan- 
hope, even  went  so  far,  in  their  anxiety  for  peace,  as  secretly  to 
offer  Spain  the  restoration  of  Gibraltar.  The  refusal  of  these 
terms  was  the  master  error  of  Alberoni,  and  the  sacrifice  of  such 
considerable  positive  advantages,  in  pursuit  of  a  policy  which 
could  only  succeed  by  a  concurrence  of  many  favourable  circum- 
stances, showed  more  the  spirit  of  a  daring  gambler  than  of 
a  great  statesman.  The  blame  has  been  thrown  exclusively 
upon  Alberoni,  though  it  is  probable  that  part,  at  least, 
should  fall  on  those  upon  whose  favour  he  depended.  At  the 
time  when  the  terms  were  first  offered,  the  expedition  against 
Sicily  was  prepared,  the  Spaniards  were  sanguine  of  being  able 
to  organise  such  a  fleet  as  would  give  them  the  command  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and  there  was  some  reasonable  prospect  of  re- 
establishing the  Spanish  dominion  in  Italy.  The  Pope  was  at 
this  time  violently  hostile  to  Spain,  and  the  combination  of 
forces  against  it  secured  by  the  Quadruple  Alliance  appeared 
at  first  sight  irresistible,  but  there  were  many  considerations 
which  served  to  weaken  it.  Holland  was  only  desirous  of  peace, 
and  as  long  as  the  war  was  confined  to  the  Mediterranean  it  was 
very  improbable  that  she  would  take  any  active  part  in  it. 
The  alliance  of  France  with  England  against  the  grandson  of 
Lewis  XIV.  was  utterly  opposed  to  French  traditions  and  to 
French  feeling.  The  health  of  the  young  King  was  very  pre- 
carious. His  death  would  probably  be  followed  by  a  disputed 
succession,  and  during  his  lifetime  there  was  a  strong  party 
opposed  to  the  Regent.  If,  as  there  was  some  reason  to  antici- 
pate, this  party  triumphed,  France  would  immediately  disappear 


CH.  II.  MISFORTUNES   OF  SPAIN.  261 

from  the  alliance,  and  her  weight  would  pass  into  the  Spanish 
scale.  England  had  taken  the  most  energetic  part  in  the 
negotiation,  and  she  looked  with  great  jealousy  on  the  formid- 
able navy  which  had  arisen  in  the  Spanish  waters ;  but  in  this 
case  also  everything  depended  on  the  continuance  of  a  tottering 
dynasty,  and  if  the  great  Northern  alliance  burst  upon  her,  her 
resources  would  be  abundantly  occupied  at  home.  Such  were 
probably  the  calculations  of  the  Spanish  Court,  and  the  successes 
in  Sicily,  and  the  safe  arrival  of  a  fleet  of  galleons  bringing  a 
large  supply  of  gold  from  the  colonies  strengtliened  its  determi- 
nation. Tlie  result  was  the  utter  ruin  of  the  reviving  greatness 
of  Spain.  On  August  22  the  British  fleet,  commanded  by 
Admiral  Byng,  attacked,  and,  after  a  desperate  encounter,  almost 
annihilated,  tlie  Spanish  fleet  off  Cape  Passaro,  in  the  neiglibour- 
hood  of  Syracuse.  The  Spaniards  complained  bitterly  that  this 
step  bad  been  taken  without  a  declaration  of  war,  when  the 
three  months  allowed  by  the  Quadruple  Alliance  had  but  just 
begun;  but  it  was  answered  with  reason  that  the  invasion  of 
Sicily  clearly  endangered  the  territorial  arrangements  that  had 
been  made  by  the  allied  powers,  and  that  Stanhope  had  fully 
warned  Alberoni  that  no  such  act  wo\ild  be  permitted  by  England. 
In  the  beginning  of  November,  Victor  Amadeus  acceded  to  the 
Quadruple  Alliance,  and  all  hope  of  assistance  in  that  quarter 
was  at  an  end.  In  December  a  ball  tired  from  the  obscure 
Norwegian  fortress  of  Frederikshall  cut  down  Charles  XII.,  in 
the  very  flower  of  his  age,  when  he  was  just  about  to  organise 
his  expedition  against  England.  No  more  terrible  blow  could 
have  fallen  on  the  Spanish  statesman.  The  Government  which 
followed,  at  once  reversed  the  policy  of  Charles.  Goertz  was 
brought  to  the  scaffold.  The  Czar  made  no  attempt  to  execute 
the  project  which  his  rival  had  begun,  and  in  the  following 
year  a  treaty  was  made  between  Hanover  and  Sweden,  by 
which,  in  consideration  of  a  money  payment,  the  cession  of 
Bremen  and  Verden  to  fhe  former  was  fully  recognised. 

Nor  was  this  all.       Alberoni,  with    characteristic    daring, 
endeavoured,  even  after  the  death  of  Charles,  to  strike  down  the 


262  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

hostile  Governments  both  in  France  and  England.  The  strong 
party  in  France  which  was  opposed  to  the  English  alliance  had 
formed  the  bold  design  of  seizing  the  person  of  the  Eegent,  car- 
rying him  prisoner  into  Spain,  and  conferring  the  regency  upon 
Philip,  who  was  content  that  the  power  should  be  actually 
exercised  by  the  Duke  of  Maine.  The  Duke,  or  rather  the 
Duchess,  was  at  the  head  of  the  conspiracy,  which  comprise<l 
several  men  of  great  importance  and  influence.  The  most 
conspicuous  were  the  Cardinal  de  Polignac,  the  well-known 
author  of  the  '  Anti-Lucrece,'  who  had  received  a  Cardinal's  hat 
throuo-h  the  influence  of  the  Pretender,  and  had  represented 
France  in  the  conferences  of  Gertruydenberg  and  of  Utrecht ; 
the  young  Duke  of  Richelieu,  famous  alike  for  his  courage  and 
his  intrigues,  who  promised  to  place  Bayonne,  where  he  was 
garrisoned,  in  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards,  and  to  head  a  rising 
in  the  South ;  the  Comte  de  Laval,  a  man  of  great  energy  and 
influence,  who  was  devotedly  attached  to  the  Duchess  of  Maine  ; 
and  the  Marquis  of  Pompadoiu-,  who  was  a  passionate  wor- 
shipper of  the  memory  and  the  policy  of  the  late  King.  All 
the  more  ardent  followers  of  Lewis  XIV.  had  seen  with  great 
indignation  the  accession  of  France  to  the  Quadruple  Alliance 
negotiated  by  England  against  Spain.  The  complete  reversal 
of  French  policy  was,  undoubtedly,  distasteful  to  the  whole 
nation,  and  the  Regent  was  personally  unpopular,  both  with  the 
nobles  and  with  the  people.  His  authority  was  of  very  doubt- 
ful legitimacy,  for  he  had  completely  disregarded  the  restric- 
tions on  the  regency  imposed  by  the  will  of  the  late  King,  and 
had  also  deprived  the  Duke  of  Maine  of  the  position  of  guardian 
to  the  young  sovereign,  which  Lewis  had  assigned  him.  He 
was  accused,  though,  no  doubt,  untruly,  of  having  poisoned  the 
late  Dauphin,  and  of  meditating  the  death  of  the  feeble  boy 
who  stood  between  him  and  the  throne  ;  and,  with  much  more 
justice,  of  having  in  foreign  affairs  sacrificed  to  his  own  personal 
interest  the  national  and  traditional  policy  of  France.  The 
ascendency  of  Dubois,  and  the  growing  influence  of  Law,  excited 
many  jealousies.     Brittany  had  been  brought  by  fiscal  oppres- 


CH.  11.  SPANISH  JACOBITE  EXPEDITION.  263 

sion  to  the  verge  of  revolt,  and,  if  the  plot  succeeded,  there  was 
no  doubt  that  the  Parliament  of  Paris  would  gladly  pronounce 
the  renunciation  of  Philip  to  be  invalid,  and  declare  him  to  be 
the  next  heir  to  the  French  throne.  Alberoni  threw  himself 
ardently  into  the  conspiracy,  and  the  Spanish  ambassador  and 
a  Spanish  priest  named  Portocarrero,  a  relative  of  the  famous 
cardinal,  minister  of  Charles  II.,  took  a  leading  part  in  organis- 
ing it.  It  was.  however,  soon  discovered.  Intercepted  letters 
revealed  its  nature  and  extent.  The  Duke  and  Duchess  of 
Maine  and  the  other  leading  conspirators  were  imprisoned  or 
exiled.  A  violent  ruptm-e  had  just  at  this  time  taken  place 
between  the  Spanish  minister  and  the  French  ambassador 
at  Madrid,  and  the  latter  had  hastily  left  the  capital,  and  with 
great  difficulty  reached  the  frontier.  The  Spanish  ambassador 
at  Paris  was  arrested,  and  papers  of  the  most  compromising 
description  having  been  found  in  his  possession  he  was  con- 
ducted speedily  under  escort  to  Blois.  The  revolt  in  Brittany, 
which  suddenly  broke  out,  was  extinguished  before  the  Spanish 
fleet  sent  to  its  assistance  could  be  of  any  avail,  and  the  Eegent 
and  the  King  of  England  almost  simultaneously  declared  war 
against  Spain. 

The  Cardinal  was  equally  unfortunate  in  his  measures 
against  England.  The  death  of  Charles  XII.  seemed  to  have 
blasted  every  hope  of,  at  this  time,  overthrowing  the  Hano- 
verian dynasty  ;  but  Alberoni  still  presented  a  bold  front  to  his 
enemies,  and  his  courage  only  rose  the  higher  as  the  tempest 
darkened  around  his  path.  Despairing  of  assistance  from  the 
North,  he  resolved  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  English 
Jacobitism,  and  to  make  one  more  effort  to  paralyse  his  most 
formidable  opponent.  He  invited  the  Pretender  to  Madrid. 
With  an  energy  really  wonderful  after  the  events  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, he  collected  a  small  fleet  of  men-of-war,  with  some 
twenty  transports,  at  Cadiz,  embarked  about  5,000  men,  and 
despatched  them,  with  arms  for  30,000  more,  to  raise  the 
Jacobites  in  Scotland.  Ormond  was  to  join  the  expedition,  as 
.    commander,  at    Corunna.     But  Frencli    spies    discovered   the 


264  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

plan.  The  French  Government  sent  speedy  information  to 
that  of  England,  and  the  ministers  took  precautions  that 
showed  their  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the  danger.  Fearing 
the  inadequacy  of  their  own  resources,  they  invited  over  Austrian 
and  Dutch  troops  from  the  Netherlands  for  the  protection  of 
Eno-land.  The  fleet  was  hastily  equipped,  and  a  reward  of 
10,000/.  was  offered  for  the  apprehension  of  Ormond.  But  the 
danger  had  already  passed.  A  great  storm  in  the  Bay  of 
Biscay  scattered  and  ruined  the  Spanish  fleet,  and  the  captains 
deemed  themselves  only  too  happy  if  they  could  conduct  their 
dismantled  and  disabled  vessels  back  to  some  Spanish  port. 
Two  ships,  containing  300  Spanish  soldiers  and  a  few  Scotch 
nobles,  outrode  the  tempest,  and  reached  Scotland  in  safety, 
where  they  were  joined  by  about  2,000  Highlanders.  For  a  time 
they  evaded  pursuit,  and  even  notice,  in  the  mountain  fast- 
nesses, but  on  June  10  they  were  attacked  in  the  valley  of  Glen- 
shiel  and  easily  crushed. 

All  hope  was  now  over  :  Spain  had  not  an  ally  in  the  world  ; 
her  navy  was  annihilated  ;  three  of  the  greatest  European  Powers 
were  combined  against  her ;  her  best  army  was  penned  up  in 
Sicily,  and  she  could  not  enroll  more  than  15,000  men  for  her 
own  defence  when  a  French  army  of  40,000  men,  imder  the 
command  of  Berwick,  had  penetrated  into  her  territory.  Ber- 
wick, by  the  great  victory  of  Almanza,  had  formerly  contributed 
largely  to  place  the  sceptre  in  the  hand  of  Philip.  He  was 
the  illegitimate  son  of  James  II.,  and,  therefore,  the  brother  of 
the  prince  whom  Philip  was  now  endeavouring  to  place  upon 
the  throne  of  England,  and  one  of  his  own  sons  had  entered 
into  the  Spanish  service,  and  had  been  rewarded  by  a  Spanish 
dukedom.  He  was,  however,  beyond  all  things  a  soldier,  and 
an  almost  stoical  sentiment  of  military  duty  subdued  every 
natural  affection.  He  accepted  without  hesitation  the  command 
which  had  been  refused  by  Vi liars,  invaded  Navarre,  subdued 
the  whole  province  of  Guipuscoa,  burnt  the  arsenal  and  the 
ships  of  war  that  were  building  at  Passages,  and  afterwards 
attacked    Catalonia.     The  arsenal   of  Santona  was  destroyed ; 


CH.  II.  EXILE   OF  ALBEEONI.  265 

an  Englisli  squadron  harassed  the  Spanish  coast,  and  a  detach- 
ment of  English  soldiers  stormed  and  captured  Vigo.  The 
Austrian  army  drove  the  now  isolated  army  in  Sicily,  after  a 
brave,  and  in  one  instance,  successful,  resistance,  from  all  its 
posts.  Nothing  remained  but  submission,  and  there  was  one 
sacrifice  which  would  make  it  comparatively  easy.  All  classes 
now  turned  their  resentment  against  Alberoni.  The  jealousy 
of  the  nobles,  the  anger  of  the  provinces  at  his  violent  reforms 
and  his  neglect  of  provincial  privileges,  the  arrogance  which 
power  and  overstrained  nerves  had  produced,  the  patriotic 
indignation  springing  from  the  disasters  he  had  brought  upon 
Spain  had  made  him  bitterly  unpopular,  and  numerous  in- 
trigues were  liastening  his  inevitable  downfall.  The  influence 
of  the  Eegent  and  of  Dubois,  the  influence  of  Peterborougli, 
who  was  then  in  close  communication  with  the  Duke  of  Parma, 
the  influence  of  the  King's  confessor,  and  the  influence  of  the 
Queen's  nurse,  were  all  made  use  of,  and  they  soon  succeeded. 
On  December  5,  1719,  he  received  an  order  dismissing 
him  from  all  his  employments,  and  banishing  him  from  the 
Spanish  soil.  JMany  of  the  Spanish  nobles  showed  him  in  this 
hour  of  his  disgrace  a  rare  consideration,  but  the  King  and 
Queen  refused  even  to  see  him,  and  a  letter  which  he  wrote 
remained  wholly  unnoticed.  On  his  way  to  the  frontier  he  was 
arrested,  and  some  important  papers  which  he  had  appropriated 
were  taken  back  to  Madrid.  He  was  conducted  through  France, 
and  sailed  from  thence  to  Italy, exclaiming  bitterly  against  the  in- 
gratitude of  the  sovereigns  he  had  so  long  and  so  faitlifully  served. 
He  intended  to  proceed  to  Rome,  but  Pope  Clement  XI., 
whom  he  had  deeply  offended,  forbade  him  to  enter  it,  and 
■  for  some  time  he  lived  in  complete  concealment.  A  copy  of 
the  Imitation  of  St.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  which  shows  by  its 
marginal  notes  that  it  was  at  this  time  his  constant  com- 
panion, was  long  preserved  in  the  Ducal  Library  of  Parma. 
Tlie  hostility  of  the  Spanish  Court  pursued  him,  and  there 
were  even  some  steps  taken  towards  depriving  him  of  his 
cardinal's  hat.     On  the  death,  however,  of  Clement  XI.  he  was 


266  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  it. 

invited  to  assist  at  the  conclave,  and,  after  a  short  period  of  se- 
clusion in  a  monastery,  he  was  admitted  into  warm  favour  by 
Innocent  XIII.  On  the  death  of  that  Pope  he  received  ten  votes 
in  the  conclave.  He  quarrelled  with  Benedict  XIII.,  and  was 
oblio-ed  during  his  pontificate  to  leave  Kome,  but  he  returned 
to  high  favour  under  Clement  XII. ;  was  appointed  legate  at 
Ravenna,  where  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  great  works  of 
drainage,  and  also  by  a  furious  quarrel  with  the'  little  State  of 
San  Marino,  and  was  afterwards  removed  to  the  legation  of 
Bologna.  He  at  last  retired  from  affairs,  and  died  in  1752  at 
the  great  age  of  eighty-eight,  bequeathing  the  bulk  of  his  for- 
tune to  the  foundation  of  a  large  institution  near  Placentia  for 
the  education  of  his  needy  fellow  citizens.' 

So  ended  a  career  which  was  certainly  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Had  there  been  more  of 
moral  principle  and  less  of  the  recklessness  of  a  gambler  in  the 
nature  of  Alberoni  he  would  have  deserved  to  rank  among  the 
greatest  of  statesmen.  He  was,  however,  singularly  unfortunate 
in  the  latter  part  of  his  public  life,  and  his  fall  was,  with  good 
reason,  a  matter  of  rejoicing  throughout  Europe.  Perhaps  no 
part  of  his  history  is  more  curiously  significant  than  its  close. 
AVe  can  hardly  have  a  more  striking  illustration  of  the  decline 
of  the  theological  spirit  in  Europe  than  the  fact  that  the  Pope 
was  unable  to  restrain  a  Christian  nation  from  attacking  the 
Emperor  when  engaged  in  the  defence  of  Christendom  against 
the  Turks ;  that  the  nation  which  perpetrated  this,  which  a  few 
generations  before  would  have  been  deemed  the  most  inexpiable 
of  all  crimes,  was  Spain,  under  the  guidance  of  a  cardinal  of  the 

'  See  the  Hist,  du  Cardinal  Alhe-  Voltaire's  Hist,  de  diaries  XIL,  and 

ro/ii  (1719)  by  J.  Rousset ;  the  notices  especially  the  admirable  history  of 

of  Alberoni  in  the   Memoirs  of  St.  Alberoni   in    Coxe's  Memoirs  of  the 

Simon  and  Duclos,  and  in  the  Letters  Spanish  Kings  of  the  House  of  Bour- 

of  the  President  de  Brasses  ;  his  own  bon,  vol.  ii.     In  private  life  Alberoni 

apologies    printed    in    the   Notivelle  seems    to  have  been  irreproachable, 

Iiiograj)liie  fi'e'/ie'/'aZe (art. 'Alberoni')  ;  and  many  of  the  charges  St.  Simon 

the  Stanhope  correspondence,  in  the  and  others  have  brougl.t  against  Mm 

appendix  to   the  second   volimie   of  have  been  successfully  refuted. 
Lord  Stanhope's  Histonj  of  England  ; 


CH.  n.  GOOD  FORTUNE  OF  THE  WHIG  3IINISTRY.  267 

Church,  and  that  that  cardinal  lived  to  be  the  favourite  and  the 
legate  of  the  Pope. 

With  the  dismissal  of  Alberoni  the  troubles  of  Europe  gra- 
dually subsided.  Philip,  after  a  short  negotiation,  acceded  to 
the  Quadruple  Alliance,  and  Sicily  and  Sardinia  were  speedily 
evacuated.  Many  difficulties  of  detail,  however,  and  many 
hesitations  remained,  and  the  negotiations  still  dragged  slowly 
on  for  some  years.  A  congress  was  held  at  Cambray  in  1724, 
and  several  new  treaties  of  alliance  were  made  confirming  or 
elucidating  the  Quadruple  Alliance.  The  singular  good  fortune 
of  the  Whig  ministry  during  the  struggle  I  have  described 
is  very  evident.  The  Hanoverian  policy  of  the  King  on  the 
question  of  Bremen  and  Verden  had  exposed  England  to  a 
danger  of  the  most  serious  kind ;  and,  but  for  the  premature 
death  of  Charles  XXL,  and  the  steady,  unwavering  loyalty  of  the 
French  Eegent  to  an  alliance  which  was  entirely  opposed  to  the 
traditions  of  French  policy,  it  might  easily  have  proved  fatal  to 
the  dynasty.  The  general  result  of  the  foreign  policy  of  Eng- 
land was  undoubtedly  very  favourable  to  the  Whig  cause.  The 
Whig  party  completed  the  work  which  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  had 
left  unfulfilled ;  the  commanding  position  which  England  occu- 
pied in  the  course  of  the  struggles  that  have  been  related,  and 
the  very  large  amount  of  success  she  achieved,  added  to  the 
reputation  of  the  countiy ;  the  pacification  of  Europe,  and 
especially  the  alliance  with  France,  withdrew  from  the  Jacobites 
all  immediate  prospect  of  foreign  assistance,  and  without  such 
assistance  it  was  not  likely  that  Jacobite  insurgents  could  suc- 
cessfully encounter  disciplined  armies.  Several  clouds,  it  is 
true,  still  hung  upon  the  horizon.  In  the  North  the  storm  of 
"war  raged  for  some  time  after  it  was  appeased  in  the  South.  An 
alliance  had  been  made  between  Sweden  and  England.  By  the 
mediation  of  the  latter,  Sweden  made  in  turn  treaties  of  peace 
with  Hanover,  Prussia,  Denmark,  and  Poland  ;  but  the  war  with 
the  Czar  continued,  and  the  coast,  in  spite  of  the  presence 
of  a  British  fleet,  was  fearfully  devastated.  Peace  was  at 
last  made  in  this  quarter  at  Nystadt  in  September  1721,   on 


2G8  ENGLAND   IN    THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

terms  extremely  favourable  to  Eussia  and  extremely  disastrous 
to  Sweden.  A  bitter  jealousy  had  arisen  between  the  Empire 
and  the  maritime  Powers  on  account  of  the  Ostend  Company, 
established  by  the  former,  to  trade  with  the  East  Indies.  The 
question  of  the  cession  of  Gibraltar  to  Spain,  which  had  been 
imprudently  raised  daring  the  late  war,  continued  in  a  very 
unsatisfactory  state.  The  obscure  and  secret  negotiation  which 
had  at  that  time  been  earned  on,  partly  through  the  interven- 
tion of  the  French  Eegent,  led,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
to  grave  misunderstanding.  The  English  Government  main- 
tained that  the  offer  had  been  made  only  in  order  to  avert  war 
with  Spain,  and  that  the  hostilities  which  followed  annulled 
it.  The  S^janish  Government  treated  the  offer  as  unconditional, 
and  declared  that  as  soon  as  peace  was  restored  England 
was  bound  to  cede  the  fortress.  The  Frei^ch  Regent,  through 
whose  hands  some  of  the  negotiations  passed,  on  the  whole,  sup- 
ported the  Spanish  demand.  Much  negotiation  on  the  subject 
took  place.  Propositions  were  made  for  an  exchange  of  Gibraltar 
for  Florida,  but  they  found  no  favour  with  the  Spanish  Court. 
Stanhope,  though  apparently  willing  to  cede  Gibraltar,  soon 
perceived  that  the  English  Parliament  would  never  consent,  and 
there  was  much  agitation  in  the  country  at  the  suspicions  that 
such  a  project  had  been  entertained.  But  George  I.,  who  appears 
to  have  been  perfectly  indifferent  to  Gibraltar,  wrote  a  letter  to 
the  King  of  Spain  in  June  1721,  which  afterwards  gave  rise  to 
very  grave  complications.  Having  spoken  of  the  prospect  of  a 
cordial  union  between  the  two  nations,  he  added, '  I  do  no  longer 
balance  to  assure  your  Majesty  of  my  readiness  to  satisfy  you 
with  regard  to  your  demand  touching  the  restitution  of  Gibraltar, 
promising  you  to  make  use  of  the  first  favourable  opportunity  to 
regulate  this  article  with  the  assent  of  my  Parliament.'  This 
letter,  which  was  for  some  years  kept  secret,  was  very  naturally 
regarded  as  a  full  admission  of  the  claims  of  the  Spanish  King, 
and,  as  we  shall  see,  it  hereafter  led  to  serious  dangers.^     The 

'  See  on  this  negotiation   Coxa's       Use  and  Abuse  of  Parliaments,  362- 
JA/e  of  Walpole,  i.  304-309 ;  Kalph's      365  ;     Lord     Stanhope "s     Higt.     of 


CH.  II.  RELIGIOUS   SCEPTICISM.  269 

temporary  abdication  of  Philip  in  favour  of  his  son  in  172-i 
gave  rise  to  some  new  and  dangerous  complications  ;  and  in  the 
same  year  Ripperda  greatly  modified  the  foreign  policy  of 
Spain,  and  brought  matters  to  the  verge  of  a  general  war. 
Still  for  some  years  the  world  enjoyed  a  real  though  a  precarious 
peace,  and  the  firm  alliance  between  England  and  France,  which 
gave  security  to  Western  Europe,  enabled  tlie  \\'hig  party  in 
England  to  consolidate  its  power,  and  the  Hanoverian  dynasty 
to  strike  its  roots  somewhat  deeper  in  the  English  soil. 

The  violent  hostility  of  the  Cliurch  party  to  the  Government 
was  at  the  same  time  slowly  subsiding,  and  tlie  influence  of  the 
Cliurch  itself  was  diminished.  The  persistent  Catholicism  of 
the  Pretender,  the  Latitudinarian  or  Low  Church  aj^pointments 
of  the  Government  and  the  great  increase  of  religious  scepticism 
modified  the  state  of  Church  feeling.  The  causes  of  the  religious 
scepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century  I  shall  hereafter  examine, 
but  it  may  here  be  noticed  how  very  different  at  different  times 
are  the  effects  of  scepticism  upon  the  spirit  of  Churches.  When 
it  is  not  very  violent,  aggressive,  or  dogmatic,  and  when  it  pro- 
duces no  serious  comoilsion  in  society,  its  usual  tendency  is  to 
lower  enthusiasm  and  to  diminish  superstition.  Men  become 
half-believers.  Strong  religious  passions  of  all  kinds  die  away. 
The  more  superstitious  elements  of  religious  systems  are  toned 
down,  unrealised,  and  silently  dropped,  and  there  is  a  tendency  to 
dwell  exclusively  upon  the  moral  aspects  of  the  faith.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  religious  scepticism  has  advanced  much  farther, 
has  assumed  a  much  more  radical  and  uncompromising  form,  and 
governs  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  strongest  minds,  it  fre- 
quently, for  a  time  at  least,  intensifies  both  the  superstition  and 
the  fanaticism  of  Churches.  Sensitive  and  religious  natures 
scared  by  destructive  criticism  which  threatens  the  very  founda- 
tions of  their  belief,  throw  themselves,  by  a  natural  reaction,  into 
the  arms  of  superstition,  and  ecclesiastical  influence  in  Churches 

England,  i.    306,    310.     In    1727    a  was  on  the  throne,  it  was  laid  before 

motion  to  produce  this  letter  was  Parliament.     See  Par/.  J7i>f.  viii.  547, 

negatived  in  the  Commons  (Jan.  23),  G'Jo. 
but  in  March,  1720,  when  George  II. 


270  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

predominates  just  in  proportion  as  the  more  masculine  lay 
intellects  cease  to  take  any  interest  in  their  concerns.  Thus  in 
the  present  day  we  find  that  over  a  great  portion  of  the  Continent 
the  lay  intellect  is  almost  divorced  from  Catholicism.  The 
class  of  mind  that  once  followed  Bossuet  or  Pascal  now  follows 
Voltaire  or  Comte,  and  the  withdrawal  from  Church  questions 
of  tlie  moderating  and  qualifying  element  has  been  one  great 
cause  of  the  Ultramontane  type  which  Catholicism  has  generally 
assumed.  Even  in  England  it  is,  probably,  no  chance  coincidence 
that,  at  a  time  when  a  religious  scepticism  far  more  searching 
and  formidable  than  any  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  advancing 
rapidly  through  the  fields  of  literature,  history,  and  science, 
a  large  proportion  of  the  intelligence  of  the  religious  teachers 
of  the  nation  is  expended  in  magnifying  the  thaumaturgic 
powers  of  Episcopalian  clergymen  and  in  discussing  the  clothes 
which  they  should  wear. 

The  effect  of  the  scepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
chiefly  of  the  former  kind,  and  the  evanescence  of  dogmatic 
zeal  was  very  favourable  to  the  Whig  party.  They  were  also, 
probably,  assisted  by  the  great  Trinitarian  controversy  which 
had  arisen  under  Anne  and  which  continued  far  into  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  problem  of  defining  and  defending  a 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  which  should  neither  fall  into  Tritheism 
on  the  one  side,  or  into  Sabellianism  on  the  other,  occupied 
the  attention  of  ecclesiastics,  and  contributed  with  other  causes  to 
divert  them  from  speculations  about  the  foundations  of  govern- 
ment. The  writings  of  Hoadly,  however,  soon  gave  a  new  bent  to 
their  energies.  This  very  able  man,  who  possessed  all  the  moral 
and  intellectual  qualities  of  a  consummate  controversialist,  had 
for  some  years  been  rapidly  acquiring  the  position  which  Burnet 
had  before  held  in  the  Low  Church  ranks.  His  latitudinarianism, 
however,  was  of  a  more  extreme  and  emphatic  character,  and  he 
greatly  surpassed  Burnet  in  the  incisive  brilliancy  of  his  controver- 
sial writing,  though  he  was  far  inferior  to  him  in  learning  and  ver- 
satility, in  depth  and  beauty  of  character,  and  in  the  discharge 
of  his  episcopal  duties.     He  was  first  brought  forward  by  Sher- 


CH.  n.  SUPPRESSION   OF   CONVOCATION.  271 

lock,  who  afterwards  became  one  of  his  leading  opponents.  He 
had  acquired  some  notoriety  during  the  Sacheverell  trial  by  the 
power  and  clearness  with  which  he  denounced  the  doctrine  of 
passive  obedience,  and  he  became  noted  as  a  trenchant  writer 
against  the  Tory  party.  The  new  Government,  in  the  first  year 
of  its  accession,  promoted  him  to  the  bishopric  of  Bangor  ;  and 
soon  afterwards,  in  reply  to  some  papers  of  the  Nonjuror  Hickes, 
he  published  his  '  Preservative  against  the  Principles  and  Prac- 
tices of  the  Nonjurors  in  Church  and  State,' in  which  he  argued 
that  all  political  power  proceeded  from  the  people,  denied  both 
the  doctrine  of  Apostolical  Succession  and  the  necessity  of  being 
in  connection  with  any  particular  Church,  and  asserted  that  sin- 
cerity is  the  one  necessary  requirement  for  the  Christian  profes- 
sion. In  March  1717  he  preached  before  the  King  his  famous 
sermon  '  On  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,'  in  which  he  enunciated 
with  great  clearness  and  force  doctrines  subversive  of  the  whole 
theoiy  of  the  High  Church  party.  Christ  himself,  he  main- 
tained, is  the  sole  judge  and  lawgiver  of  the  Christian  Church. 
No  human  power  has  a  right  to  impose  spiritual  tests  or  spiritual 
punishments.  The  true  Church  of  Christ  is  not  a  visible  organi- 
sation, but  the  sum  of  all,  whether  dispersed  or  united,  who 
trust  in  Him  ;  and  all  attempts  by  temporal  rewards  or  punish- 
ments to  induce  men  to  believe  or  discard  particular  religious 
opinions  are  essentially  repugnant  to  the  Christian  religion. 
Probably  no  other  sermon  ever  produced  so  voluminous  a  con- 
troversy, or  excited  in  clerical  circles  so  prolonged  an  agitation, 
but  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  movement  appears  to  have 
been  purely  literary,  and  it  was  followed  by  no  recurrence  of 
the  Sacheverell  riots.  The  opinions  of  Hoadly  were  steadily 
growing  among  the  educated  classes,  and  Church  fanaticism  was 
somewhat  subsiding  throughout  the  country.  The  Grovernment 
acted  with  a  high  hand  and  with  undisguised  partiality.  Four 
royal  chaplains  who  had  written  against  Hoadly  were  deprived 
of  their  positions.  The  Lower  House  of  Convocation,  having 
drawn  up  a  seVere  and  elaborate  remonstrance  against  the  sermon 
of  Hoadly,  was   prorogued,  and  though  it  still  continued  to  be 


272  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  ii. 

formally  assembled  with  every  Parliament,  it  obtained  no  royal 
licence  enabling  it  to  transact  business  for  more  than  a  century. 
A  great  centre  of  opposition  and  a  great  seedplot  of  religious 
intolerance  thus  passed  away.  The  sympathies  of  the  lower  clergy 
were  in  violent  hostility  to  both  the  civil  Government  and  the 
bishops,  and  their  power  over  the  country  districts  and  over  the 
universities  rendered  them  most  formidable.  The  coxurse  of 
events,  however,  had  been  flowing  steadily  against  them.  Pub- 
lic opinion  was  exasperated  by  the  large  proportion  of  Scotch 
Episcopalians  who  were  concerned  in  the  rebellion  of  1715,'  and 
by  the  appearance  of  more  than  one  English  Nonjuror  clergy- 
man upon  the  scaffold.  The  divisions  of  the  clergy  and  the 
secularising  tendencies  of  the  time  had  done  their  work,  and  the 
suspension  of  the  synodical  action  of  the  Church  hardly  created  a 
murmur  of  agitation.  Few  representative  bodies  have  ever  fallen 
more  unhonoured  and  unlamented.  Atterbury,  the  most  brilliant 
tribime,  orator,  and  pamphleteer  of  the  High  Church  party  was 
deeply  immersed  in  Jacobite  conspiracies  and  was  thrown  into 
prison  in  1722.  Great  efforts  were  made  to  raise  a  storm  of 
enthusiasm  in  his  favour.  Pathetic  pictures  were  exposed  to 
view  representing  him  looking  through  the  bars  of  his  prison. 
The  London  clergy  showed  their  sympathies  by  having  prayers 
for  him  in  most  of  the  churches,  on  the  pretext  that  he  was 
suffering  from  the  gout.  He  lay  for  several  months  in  prison, 
and  was  then,  by  the  violent  measure  of  a  bill  of  pains  and 
penalties,  deprived  of  his  spiritual  dignities  and  sent  into  exile. 
Twice  before,  within  the  memory  of  men  who  were  still  living, 
had  English  Governments  attempted  to  strike  down  popular  re- 
presentatives of  the  Church,  and  on  each  occasion  the  blow  had 
recoiled  upon  themselves.  The  prosecution  of  the  seven  bishops 
contributed  more  than  any  other  single  cause  to  shatter  the 
dynasty  of  the  Stuarts,  and  the  impeachment  of  Sacheverell 
to  ruin  the  great  ministry  of  Godolphin.     Under  any  circum- 

'  See  the    letters    which   Bishop  Among    them    was    a    son    of     the 

Nicholson    wrote    from    Carlisle    to  Bishop      of       Edinburgh.  —  British 

Archbishop    Wake,    describing    the  Museum,  Add.  MSS.  6116. 
state  of  the  prisoners  collected  there. 


CH.  II.  BANISHMENT   OF  ATTERBURY.  273 

stances  a  bill  of  pains  and  penalties,  by  which  Parliament  assumes 
the  functions  of  a  court  of  justice  and  condemns  men  against 
whom  no  sufficient  legal  evidence  can  be  adduced,  is  an  extreme, 
unconstitutional,  and  justly  unpopular  measure.  So  rapidly, 
however,  had  the  ecclesiastical  sentiment  throughout  England 
declined  that  the  Whig  ministry  of  George  I.  was  able,  without 
serious  difficulty,  by  such  a  measure  to  deprive  of  his  dignities 
and  to  banish  from  the  country  the  most  brilliant  and  popular 
bishop  in  the  English  Church. 

This  contrast  is  very  marked,  and  it  is  all  the  more  significant 
because  the  arrest  and  exile  of  Atterbury  took  place  at  a  time 
when  England  seemed  peculiarly  ripe  for  agitation.  The  ruin, 
the  poverty,  the  indignation  which  the  failure  of  the  South  Sea 
Company  had  spread  through  every  part  of  the  kingdom  had 
the  natural  effect  of  everywhere  reviving  political  discontent. 
The  birth  of  the  Young  Pretender  in  1720  had  rekindled  the 
hopes  of  the  Jacobites.  It  was  noticed  that  when  a  gentleman 
named  Stuart  was  chosen  in  1721  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  the 
streets  were  filled  on  Lord  Mayor's  day  by  enthusiastic  crowds 
shouting  '  High  Church  and  Stuart ! '  Soon  after,  information 
received  from  the  French  Regent,  and  corroborated  by  inter- 
cepted letters,  revealed  the  existence  of  a  most  formidable 
Jacobite  plot.  An  expedition  was  to  have  invaded  England 
under  the  Duke  of  Ormoud.  A  plan  was  made  for  seizing  the 
Bank  and  the  Tower.  The  design  appeared  so  serious  to  the 
Government  that  the  most  stringent  measures  were  taken.  A 
camp  was  formed  in  Hyde  Park,  all  military  officers  were  ordered 
to  repair  at  once  to  their  commands,  troops  were  brought  over 
from  Ireland,  the  King  postponed  his  intended  visit  to  Hanover, 
the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended  for  a  year.  Among  those 
who  were  arrested,  in  addition  to  Atterbury,  on  suspicion  of 
high  treason,  were  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  the  first  peer  of  the 
realm,  Lord  North  and  Grey,  Lord  Orrery,  and  Dr.  Friend  the 
famous  physician,  who  was  also  a  Member  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  A  gentleman  named  Layer,  who  was  tried  and  found 
guilty  of  enlisting  soldiers  for  the  Pretender,  was  hung  and 

VOL.  I.  19 


274  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  ii. 

quartered  ;  and  bills  of  pains  and  penalties  were  carried,  though 
not  without  much  opposition,  through  both  Houses,  condemning 
a  Jesuit  named  Plunket  and  a  Nonjuror  clergyman  named  Kelly 
to  perpetual  imprisonment  and  the  forfeiture  of  their  goods.'  It 
was  in  this  critical  and  anxious  moment  that  the  Government, 
by  a  similar  method,  struck  down  the  prelate  who  was  the 
special  representative  of  the  High  Church  party,  and  did  so 
with  a  perfect  impunity.'^ 

These  facts  are  sufficient  to  show  the  great  change  which,  in 
less  than  a  generation,  had  passed  over  ecclesiastical  sentiment 
in  England,  and  also,  I  hope,  the  means  by  which  that  change 
was  effected.  We  may  next  proceed  to  examine  the  manner  in 
which  the  dominant  Whig  party  availed  themselves  of  their 
opportunity  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  religious  liberty ; 
and,  in  order  to  do  so  with  the  greatest  clearness,  I  propose 
to  abandon  for  the  present  the  strictly  chronological  order  of 
events,  and,  adjourning  the  consideration  of  all  other  incidents, 
to  devote  the  next  few  pages  to  exhibiting  in  a  single  picture 
the  whole  religious  legislation  in  England  during  the  reigns  of 
the  first  two  princes  of  the  House  of  Brunswick.  The  class 
whose  claims  were  most  keenly  felt  by  the  Whig  party  were, 
of  course,  the  ordinary  Protestant  Nonconformists.  They 
had  been,  as  we  have  seen,  excluded  by  the  Corporation  Act  of 
1661,  and  by  the  Test  Act  of  1673,  from  all  corporations  and 
from  all  public  offices,  while  the  Occasional  Conformity  Act 
increased  the  stringency  of  the  earlier  legislation  by  excluding 
those  moderate  Dissenters  who,  while  habitually  adhering  to  the 
Nonconformist  worship,  had  no  scruple  in  occasionally  commu- 
nicating according  to  the  Anglican  rite. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  sacramental  test,  besides 
its  political   results,   had    a   very  serious    influence  in  lower- 

'  Tindal.     The   insertion    of    the  Rogers,  i.  334-340. 

forfeiture    of    goods    into    the    bill  «  Tindal,   Smollett,    Coxe's    Wal- 

against  Plunket  was  believed  to  be  pole,  Pari.  Hist.  vol.  viii.     The  guilt 

done  merely  in  order  to  form  a  pre-  of  Atterbury  which  was  doubted  by 

cedent,  as  Plunket  had  no  property.  some  has   been  fully  proved  by  the 

—See  the  protests  of   the  Lords,  in  publication  of  the  Stuart  papers. 


CH.  n.  THE   SACRAMENTAL    TEST.  275 

ing  the  religious  sentiment  of  England.  In  most  great 
Churches,  and  especially  in  Churches  which  are  established  by 
law,  and  in  which  liturgical  forms  are  employed,  the  language 
of  public  worship  is  of  a  kind  which  can  at  most  be  appropriate 
to  a  very  small  fraction  of  those  who  use  it.  The  customs  of 
society  draw  within  the  Church  men  of  all  grades  of  piety 
and  of  faith.  The  selfish,  the  frivolous,  the  sceptical,  the 
worldly,  the  indifferent,  or  at  least  men  whose  convictions  are 
but  half  formed,  whose  zeal  is  very  languid,  and  whose  religious 
thoughts  are  very  few,  form  the  bulk  of  every  congregation, 
and  they  are  taught  to  employ  language  expressing  the  very 
ecstacy  of  devotion.  The  words  that  pass  mechanically  from 
their  lips  convey  in  turn  the  fervour  of  a  martyr,  the  self-abase- 
ment or  the  rapture  of  a  saint,  a  passionate  confidence  in  the 
reality  of  imseen  things,  a  passionate  longing  to  pass  beyond 
the  veil.  The  effect  of  this  contrast  between  the  habitual  lan- 
guage of  devotion  and  the  habitual  dispositions  of  the  devotees, 
between  the  energy  of  religious  expression  and  the  languor  of 
religious  conviction,  is  in  some  respects  extremely  deleterious. 
The  sense  of  truth  is  dulled.  Men  come  to  regard  it  as  a 
natural  and  scarcely  censurable  thing  to  attune  their  language 
on  the  highest  of  all  subjects  to  a  key  wholly  different  from 
their  genuine  feelings  and  beliefs,  and  that  which  ought  to  be 
the  truest  of  human  occupations  becomes  in  fact  the  most  unreal 
and  the  most  conventional. 

In  this  manner  a  moral  atmosphere  is  formed  which  is  pecu- 
liarly fatal  to  sincerity  and  veracity  of  character,  and  which  is 
in  time  so  widely  diffused  that  those  who  live  in  it  are  hardly 
conscious  of  its  existence.  But  its  influence  on  the  religious 
sentiment  would  have  been  much  more  fiital  had  there  not  been 
an  inner  circle  of  devotion,  a  sanctuary  of  faith,  which  is  com- 
paratively intact.  The  reception  of  the  Sacrament  has,  fortu- 
nately, never  been,  to  any  great  extent,  one  of  the  requirements 
of  the  social  code,  and  a  rite  which  of  all  Christian  institutions 
is  the  most  admirable  in  its  touching  solemnity,  has  for  the 
most  part  been  left  to  sincere  and  earnest  believers.     Sometliing 


276  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  cu.  u. 

of  the  fervour,  something  of  the  deep  sincerity  of  the  early 
Christians  may  even  now  be  seen  around  the  sacred  table,  and 
prayers  instinct  with  the  deepest  and  most  solemn  emotion 
may  be  employed  without  appearing  almost  blasphemous  by 
their  contrast  with  the  tone  and  the  demeanour  of  the  wor- 
shippers. This  is  not  the  place  to  relate  how  what  was  origi- 
nally the  simplest  and  most  beautiful  of  commemorative  rites  was 
transformed,  in  the  interests  of  sacerdotal  pretensions,  into  the 
most  grotesque  and  monstrous  of  superstitions,  or  how  an 
institution  intended  to  be  the  special  symbol  of  Christian  unity 
and  affection  was  dragged  into  the  arena  of  politics  and  con- 
troversy, was  made  the  badge  of  parties,  the  occasion  or  the 
pretext  of  countless  judicial  murders.  It  is  sufficient  here  to 
notice  that  the  chief  barrier  against  religious  formalism  in  Eng- 
land was  removed  when  the  most  sacred  rite  of  the  Christian 
religion  was  degraded  into  '  an  office  key,  the  picklock  to  a 
place,'  1  when  the  libertine,  the  placehunter,  and  the  worldling 
were  invited  to  partake  in  it  for  purposes  wholly  unconnected 
with  religion.  That  this  profanation  should  have  been  for  a 
long  period  ardently  defended  by  the  clergy,  and  especially  by 
that  section  of  them  whose  principles  led  them  to  take  the  most 
exalted  view  of  the  nature  of  the  Sacrament,  is  one  of  the  most 
singular  illustrations  on  record  of  the  extent  to  which,  in  eccle- 
siastical bodies,  the  corporate  interest  of  the  Church  may  some- 
times, even  with  good  men,  override  the  interests  of  religion. 
One  of  the  most  ardent  advocates  of  the  test  was  Swift,  and  in 
his  '  Journal  to  Stella  'he  has  given  a  vivid  sketch  of  its  prac- 
tical working.  '  I  was  early,'  he  writes,  *  with  the  Secretary 
[Bolingbroke]  but  he  was  gone  to  his  devotions  and  to  receive 
the  Sacrament.     Several  rakes  did  the  same.     It  was  not  for 


'  Hast  thou  by  statute  shoved  from  its  design 
The  Saviour's  feast,  his  own  blest  bread  and  wine. 
And  made  the  symbols  of  atoning  grace 
An  oflBce  key,  a  picklock  to  a  place, 
That  infidels  may  make  their  title  good 
By  an  oath  dipped  in  sacramental  blood  ? ' — Con'per, 


CH.  11.  THE   TEST  ACT.  277 

piety  but  employment,  according  to  Act  of  Parliament.''  It  even 
became  the  general  custom  in  the  Church,  for  the  minister,  before 
celebrating  the  Communion,  to  desire  the  legal  communicants, 
if  tliere  were  any,  to  separate  and  divide  themselves  from  those 
who  were  come  there  purely  for  the  sake  of  devotion.* 

In  this  respect  the  history  of  the  sacramental  test  has  a  very 
melancholy  interest.  Nor  is  it  less  remarkable  when  we  consider 
its  origin.  The  Corporation  Act,  indeed,  was  directed  against 
Protestant  Dissenters,  but  the  Test  Act,  as  is  well  known,  was 
aimed  exclusively  against  Catholics.  It  was  enacted  in  1673,  at 
a  time  when  the  dread  of  Popery  had  almost  reached  its  height. 
The  King  was  gravely  suspected.  The  heir  to  the  throne  had 
recently  proclaimed  himself  a  Catholic.  The  Government  had 
combined  with  Lewis  XIV.  in  war  with  Holland,  the  chief  Pro- 
testant Power  of  the  Continent.  Charles  II.,  by  a  bold  and 
unconstitutional  exercise  of  authority,  had  issued  a  declaration 
of  indulgence  suspending  all  penal  laws  against  Nonconformists 
and  against  recusants,  and  it  was  clearly  imderstood  that  the 
declaration  was  intended  not  only  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  the 
royal  prerogative,  but  also,  and  even  more  signally,  to  protect 
the  Catholics.  This  disposition  of  the  sovereign  and  of  the 
heir  to  the  throne,  combined  with  the  aggressive  attitude  of 
Catholicism  on  the  Continent,  and  with  several  attempts  that 
had  been  made  to  tamper  with  or  overawe  the  constitutional 
guardians  at  home,  had  excited  the  keenest  alarm,  and  the  Test 
Act  was  introduced,  in  order  to  maintain  the  exclusion  of  Catho- 
lics from  office  by  imposing  a  test  which  tliey  would  never  take. 
That  this  was  the  object  appears  not  only  from  the  debate,  but 
also  from  the  very  title  of  the  Bill,  which  was  described  as  '  an 
Act  for  preventing  Dangers  which  may  happen  from  Popish 
Recusants.'  The  Dissenters  who  sat  in  Parliament  exhibited 
on  this  occasion  a  rare  and  magnanimous  disinterestedness.     It 

'  Journal  to  Stella.  written, '  Tlie  sacramental  test,  is  made 

-  Jlixt.    of   Parliament  from   the  a  sad  and  profane  use  of  by  otliers 

Death  of  Queen  Anne  to  the  Death  of  and  many  more,  I  fear,  than  the  Dis- 

George  II.,  p.  2.57.  It  is  not  surprising  senters.  It  is  become  a  great  scandal ' 

that  the  Speaker  Onslow  should  have  (Note  to  Burnet,  ii.  364). 


278  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

was  observed  that  the  Act  would  operate  against  them  as  well 
as  against  the  CathoUcs ;  but  Alderman  Love,  who  was  one  of 
their  leading  representatives,  begged  the  House  not  to  hesitate, 
through  any  considerations  of  this  kind,  to  pass  a  measure  which 
he  believed  to  be  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  English  liberty  ; 
and,  trusting  that  special  legislation  would  speedily  relieve  them 
from  their  disabilities,  all  the  Dissenters  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons voted  for  the  Bill.^  The  patriotism  of  the  course  which  they 
pursued  was  then  fully  recognised,  and  some  attempts  were  made 
at  the  time  to  relieve  them  from  a  part  of  the  burdens  to  which 
they  were  liable,  but  they  were  frustrated  by  the  lateness  of  the 
session  and  by  difficulties  which  had  arisen  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
Such  were  the  circumstances  under  which  the  Test  Act  was 
carried.  That  such  a  law,  carried  in  such  a  manner,  should 
have  continued  when  the  Eevolution  was  firmly  established,  that 
it  should  have  survived  a  period  of  forty-five  years  of  unbroken 
Whig  ascendancy,  that  it  should  have  outlived  the  elder  and  have 
been  defended  by  the  younger  Pitt,  and  that  it  should  have  been 
reserved  for  Lord  John  Eussell  to  procure  its  repeal,  is  sm-ely  one 
of  the  most  striking  instances  of  national  ingratitude  in  history. 
William,  in  whose  reign,  as  Swift  bitterly  complained,  the  maxim 
had  come  into  fashion  'that  no  man  ought  to  be  denied  the 
liberty  of  serving  his  country  upon  account  of  a  different  belief 
in  matters  of  speculative  opinion,'  had  done  everything  in  his 
power  to  procure  the  abolition  of  the  test,  but  great  majorities 
in  Parliament  defeated  his  intention.  Stanhope  had  entertained 
the  same  desire,  and  such  a  measure  actually  formed  part  of  a 
Bill  which  was  carried  through  its  second  reading  in  1718,  but 
the  opposition  was  so  strong  that  the  clauses  referring  to  the  Test 
and  Corporation  Acts  were  struck  out  in  Committee  ;  and  the 
premature  death  of  Stanhope  prevented  their  speedy  revival.  The 
Dissenters  were  now  organising  rapidly  with  a  view  to  obtaining 
relief;  and  Hoadly,  Kennett,  and  several  others  of  the  more 
liberal  Anglicans,  seconded  them ;  but  Walpole,  though  he  was 
personally  favom-able  to  the  measure,  and  though  the  Dissenters 

'  Burnet'3  Owyi  Times,  i.  3i7-318. 


CH.  n.  THE  TEST  ACT.  279 

had  steadily  supported  him,  shrank  to  the  last  from  provoking  a 
new  ebullition  of  Church  fanaticism.  They  at  last  lost  patience, 
and  had  a  measure  for  the  repeal  brought  forward  in  1736 ;  but 
Walpole,  in  a  very  moderate  and  conciliatory  speech,  while 
expressing  much  sympathy  for  the  Dissenters,  pronounced  the 
motion  ill-timed,  and,  through  the  opposition  of  the  Whig 
Government,  it  was  thrown  out  by  251  to  123.  The  measure 
was  again  brought  forward  in  1739,  at  a  time  which  seemed 
pecidiarly  favourable,  for  the  Tory  party  had  lately  seceded  from 
Parliament,  leaving  the  conduct  of  affairs  wholly  in  the  hands  of 
the  Whigs.  But  the  Government  was  still  inflexible,  and  the 
measure  was  defeated  in  an  exclusively  Whig  House  by  188  to 
89.  It  was,  probably,  about  this  time  that  a  deputation  of  Non- 
conformists, headed  by  Dr.  Chandler,  had  an  interview  with  Wal- 
pole, and  remonstrated  with  him  on  the  course  he  was  pursuing 
in  spite  of  his  repeated  assurances  of  good-will  and  his  repeated 
intimations  that  he  would  some  day  assist  in  procuring  the  repeal. 
The  minister,  as  usual,  answered  the  deputation  that,  whatever 
were  his  private  inclinations,  the  time  had  not  arrived.  '  You 
have  so  often  returned  this  answer,'  said  Dr.  Chandler,  '  that  I 
trust  you  will  give  me  leave  to  ask  when  the  time  will  come  ? ' 
*  If  you  require  a  specific  answer,'  replied  Walpole,  with  a  some- 
what imprudent  candour, '  I  will  give  it  you  in  a  word  -  never.' ' 
But  althouofh  the  dread  of  an  ebullition  of  Church  feeling 
like  that  which  destroyed  the  great  ministry  of  Godolphin 
induced  the  Whigs  to  maintain  the  Test  Act,  yet  something 
was  done  to  remove  the  reproach  of  intolerance  from  the 
English  name.  The  Schism  Act,  which  restricted  the  educa- 
tion of  the  Dissenters,  and  the  Occasional  Conformity  Act, 
which  was  intended  to  restrict  their  political  power,  were  both 
repealed  in  1718  ;  but,  in  order  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  the 
scandal  which  had  been  given  by  Sir  Humphrey  Edwin  in  the 
preceding  reign,  a  clause  was  at  tlie  same  time  enacted  provid- 
ing that  no  mayor  or  bailiff  or  other  magistrate  should  attend  a 
meeting-house  with  the  ensigns  of  office,  under  pain  of  being 

'  Coxe's  Walpole,  i.  608.     See  too  Doddridge's  Diary,  iii.  365-6. 


280  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  ii. 

disqualified  from  holding  any  public  oflBce/  In  the  debates  on 
this  occasion  Hoadly  and  Kennett  were  conspicuous  in  theii- 
advocacy  of  the  Dissenters,  but  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury 
and  York  were  both  opposed  to  the  repeal  of  the  Acts  of  Anne. 
The  Grovernment  silently  favoured  the  Nonconformist  interests 
by  its  steady  promotion,  both  in  Church  and  State,  of  Latitu- 
dinarians  and  Whigs.  It  secured  the  Protestant  Dissenters  in 
Ireland  a  Toleration  Act  considerably  more  liberal  than  that  of 
England.  It  endeavoured,  though  without  success,  to  free  the 
Irish  Dissenters  from  the  Test  Act,  and  it  gradually  relaxed  the 
administration  of  the  English  Act  to  such  a  degree  that  it 
became  almost  nugatory.  The  original  Act  of  Charles  II.  en- 
joined that  every  official  should  receive  the  Anglican  Sacrament 
within  three  months  after  his  admission  into  office,  but  the 
time  of  grace  was  extended  under  George  I.  to  six  months. 
Soon  after,  the  policy  was  adopted  of  passing  annual  bills  of 
indemnity  in  favom*  of  those  who  had  accepted  office  but  had 
not  taken  the  Sacrament  within  the  required  time.  There  is 
something  in  this  device  which  is  cm-iously  characteristic  of  the 
course  of  English  legislation,  and  especially  of  the  policy  of  Wal- 
pole.  The  broad  rule,  that  no  one  should  hold  office  under  the 
Crown  without  taking  the  Anglican  Sacrament  within  six  months 
of  his  accession,  remained.  The  stigma  upon  the  Dissenters 
was  unremoved.  The  Indemnity  Acts,  on  the  face  of  them,  had 
no  reference  to  conscientious  scruples,  for  tliey  purported  only  to 
relieve  those  who  'through  ignorance  of  the  law,  absence,  or 
uciavoidable  accident '  had  omitted  to  qualify,  and  it  was  only 
by  a  very  liberal  interpretation  that  the  relief  was  extended  to 
those  who  abstained  from  conscientious  motives.  The  Acts 
applied  only  to  those  who  were  actually  in  office  or  in  corpora- 
tions, and  in  elections  to  corporate  offices  where  previous  confor- 
mity was  required  it  was  still  open  to  any  individual  to  object 
to  a  Dissenting  candidate,  and  such  an  objection  rendered 
invalid  all  votes  that  were  given  to  him.^  A  few  scrupulous 
Nonconformists  considered  it  wrong  to  avail  themselves  of  the 

'  5  George  I.  c.  4.  '  See  Pari.  Hist.  (New  Series)  xviii.  689,  726. 


I 


CH.  n.  ACTS   OF    INDEMNITY.  281 

permission  of  the  Legislature  to  break  the  law,  or  to  be  guilty 
of  what  Lord  North  pronounced  to  be  '  a  mental  fraud '  by 
sheltering  their  conscientious  scruples  under  a  law  which  pro- 
fessed only  to  give  relief  to  the  careless,  the  ignorant,  or  the 
absent.  Many  instances  were  cited  in  which  Dissenting  can- 
didates were  excluded  from  corporations,  because  previous  to 
the  election,  notice  had  been  given  that  tliey  had  not  fulfilled 
the  requirement  of  the  law  by  receiving  the  sacrament  in  an 
Anglican  Church  within  the  preceding  year,  and  those  who  ob- 
tained office  enjoyed  only  a  precarious  liberty,  depending  upon 
the  annual  vote  of  Parliament.'  But  when  all  these  qualifica- 
tions have  been  made,  the  fact  remains  that  through  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Indemnity  Acts  a  great  number  of  the  Dissenters  were 
admitted  to  offices  and  corporations,  and  were  admitted  without 
exciting  any  ferment  in  the  community.  The  first  Indemnity 
Act  was  passed  in  1727,  and,  with  a  few  exceptions,  a  similar  Act 
was  passed  every  year  till  the  Test  Act  was  repealed  in  1828. 

Another  branch  of  the  religious  policy  of  the  Whigs  was 
intended  to  meet  the  scruples  of  the  Quakers.  "WTien  the  tem- 
porary Act  making  their  solemn  affirmation  equivalent,  in  all 
civil  cases,  to  an  oath,  was  made  perpetual  in  1715,  an  amend- 
ment was  introduced  by  the  Lords,  and  accepted  by  the 
Commons,  extending  the  Act  to  Scotland  and,  for  a  limited 
period,  to  the  colonies.'^  An  opinion,  however,  soon  grew  up 
among  the  Quakers  that  to  affirm  '  in  the  presence  of  Almighty 
God '  was  not  less  sinful  than  to  swear,  and  a  Bill  was  accord- 
ingly introduced  by  the  Government  in  1721,  providing  a  new 
form  of  affirmation,  from  which  the  obnoxious  words  were 
omitted.'  A  portion  of  tlie  London  clergy  petitioned  against  the 
Bill,  and  the  two  Archbishops  opposed  it,  but  it  was  carried  by 
a  large  majority.  Another  measure  was  less  successful.  The 
Acts  providing  a  cheap  method  of  levying  tithes  were  not  com- 
pulsory, and  it  was  still  in  the  power  of  the  clergy  to  carry  their 

>  The  fullest  information  I  have  1820). 
met  with  about  the  practical  operation  -  1  George  I.  ii.  6.     Gough's  ITigt. 

of   the   Test  Act   is   in  a  collection  of  the  Quakers,  iv.  161. 
called  The  Test  Act  Beporter  (3rd  ed.  '  8  George  I.  c.6  . 


282  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

tithe  cases  before  the  Exchequer  or  Ecclesiastical  Courts,  and 
thus  to  inflict  on  the  Quakers  heavy  costs  and  imprisonment. 
That  this  course  was  actually  adopted  to  a  very  considerable 
extent  appears  from  the  petitions  of  the  Quakers,  who  stated 
that  not  less  than  1,180  of  their  number  had,  since  the  passing 
of  the  Kelief  Acts,  been  prosecuted  for  tithes  in  the  Exchequer, 
Ecclesiastical,  or  other  Courts  in  England  and  Wales  ;  that  302 
of  them  had  been  committed  to  prison,  and  that  nine  had  died 
prisoners.  They  added  that  '  these  prosecutions,  though  fre- 
quently commenced  for  trivial  sums,  from  4s.  to  5s.,  and  the 
greater  part  of  them  for  sums  not  exceeding  40s.,  have  been 
attended  with  such  heavy  costs  and  rigorous  exactions  that 
above  800?.  have  been  taken  from  ten  persons  when  the  original 
demands  upon  all  of  them  collectively  did  not  amount  to  1 5L' ' 
Walpole,  who,  in  his  elections,  had  been  brought  in  much  con- 
tact with  Quakers,  warmly  supported  their  demand  that  the 
simplest  method  of  levying  tithes  should  be  the  only  method, 
and  a  Bill  embodying  this  principle  passed  easily  through  the 
House  of  Commons.  A  great  agitation,  however,  then  arose 
among  the  clergy.  They  contended  that  the  secm-ity  of  tithes 
would  be  diminished,  and  that  it  was  necessary  to  deter  those 
who  refused  to  pay  them,  by  the  infliction  of  heavy  fines,  and  it 
was  suggested  with  whimsical  ingenuity  that  there  might  be 
persons  who,  believing  tithes  to  be  of  Divine  origin,  would  think 
it  wrong  to  enforce  their  claims  before  any  but  an  Ecclesiastical 
Court,  and  would  in  consequence  be  persecuted  if  they  were 
obliged  to  resort  to  the  magistrates. ^  The  Bishop  of  London 
led  the  opposition ;  fourteen  other  bishops  voted  against  the 
Bill,  and  the  Chancellor  having  taken  the  same  side,  the 
measure,  to  the  great  indignation  of  Walpole,  was  rejected  in 
the  Lords. 

The  next  class  of  questions  bearing  in  some  degree  upon 
religious  liberty  were  those  relating  to  the  naturalisation  of 
foreign  Protestants  and  of  Jews.     The  proposal  to  naturalise 

»  Bogue   and    Bennett's   Jlisi.   of      Quakers,  iv.  279-302. 
Dissejitcrs,  ii.  128.     Gough's  Hist,  of  ■  Pari.  Hist.  ix.  1165-1219. 


CH.  II.  ACTS   OF   NATURALISATION.  283 

foreign  Protestants  upon  their  taking  the  oaths  and  receiving 
the  Sacrament  in  any  Protestant  church,  which  had  been  car- 
ried in  1709,  and  repealed  in  1712,  was  brought  forward  by 
Mr.  Nugent  in  1745,  and  again  in  1751.  An  alarm  which  had 
at  this  time  been  spread  about  an  alleged  decrease  of  popu- 
lation through  excessive  drinking  greatly  favoured  it,*  and  on 
the  latter  occasion  it  was  warmly  supported  by  Pelham,  who 
was  then  at  the  head  of  the  Government,  and  it  was  carried  suc- 
cessfully through  its  earlier  stages.  It  soon,  however,  appeared 
that  a  powerful  combination  of  influences  was  opposed  to  it. 
The  City  of  London,  fearing  a  dangerous  rivalry  in  trade,  led  the 
opposition,  and  although  petitions  from  Liverpool  and  Bristol, 
and  from  some  London  merchants,  were  presented  in  its  favour, 
the  balance  of  mercantile  opinion  seems  to  have  been  against 
it.  The  Church  dreaded  an  accession  to  the  forces  of  Dissent, 
and  the  strong  popular  antipathy  to  foreigners  was  speedily 
aroused.  The  death  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  led  to  a  slight 
postponement  of  the  Bill,  and  the  petitions  against  it  were  so 
numerous  and  so  urgent  that  the  minister  thought  it  advisable 
silently  to  drop  it. 

A  more  remarkable  history  is  the  attempt  of  the  Pelhams  in 
1753  to  legalise  the  naturalisation  of  Jews.  The  Jew^s,  as  is 
well  known,  had  been  completely  banished  from  England  by 
a  Statute  of  Edward  I.,  and  they  did  not  attempt  to  return 
till  the  Commonwealth,  and  were  not  formally  authorised  to 
establish  themselves  in  England  till  after  the  Kestoration.^ 
The  first  synagogue  in  London  was  erected  in  1662.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  occasional  physicians  or  merchants  may  have  secretly 
come  over  before,'  but  their  number  must  have  been  very  few, 
and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  Shakespeare,  when  he  drew 
his  immortal  picture  of  Shylock,  had  himself  never  seen  a  Jew. 

'  See  Walpole's  George  II.  i.  44-  Jewish  doctor  named  Lopez,  was  one 

4.5.  of  the  physicians  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 

'  Slant's    B.iit.   of   the    Jovs    in  and   was   executed   for  an    attempt 

En/jland,  p.  72.  to  poison  her.     See  Hume's  Hist,  of 

'  The  Jews  were  specially  famous  England,  ch.'s.Yin.   See  too  Picciotto's 

for  their  knowledge  of  medicine,  and  a  A  mjlo-JoHsh  Hist.  p.  24. 


284  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

The  hatred,  indeed,  of  that  unhappy  race  in  England  was 
peculiarly  tenacious  and  intense.  The  old  calumny  that  the 
Jews  were  accustomed  on  Good  Friday  to  crucify  a  Christian  boy, 
which  was  sedulously  circulated  on  the  Continent,  and  which 
even  now  forms  the  subject  of  one  of  the  great  frescoes  around 
the  Cathedral  of  Toledo,  was  firmly  believed,  and  the  legend  of 
the  crucifixion  of  young  Hew  of  Lincoln  sank  deeply  into  the 
popular  imagination.  The  story  was  told  by  Matthew  Paris; 
it  was  embodied  in  an  early  ballad ;  it  was  revived,  many  years 
after  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews,  by  Chaucer,  who  made  the 
Jewish  murder  of  a  Christian  child  the  subject  of  one  of  his 
most  graphic  tales  ;^  and  in  the  same  spirit  Marlowe,  towards  the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  painted  his  '  Jew  of  Malta '  in  the 
darkest  colours.  There  does  not  appear,  however,  to  have  been 
any  legal  obstacle  to  the  sovereign  and  Parliament  naturalising 
a  Jew  till  a  law,  enacted  under  James  I.,  and  directed  against 
the  Catholics,  made  the  sacramental  test  an  essential  preli- 
minary to  naturalisation.  Two  subsequent  enactments  exempted 
from  this  necessity  all  foreigners  who  were  engaged  in  the  hemp 
and  flax  manufacture,  and  all  Jews  and  Protestant  foreigners 
who  had  lived  for  seven  continuous  years  in  the  American  plan- 
tations.^ In  the  reign  of  James  II.  the  Jews  were  relieved  from 
the  payment  of  the  alien  duty,  but  it  is  a  significant  fact  that 
it  was  reimposed  after  the  Eevolution  at  the  petition  of  the 
London  merchants.^  In  the  reign  of  Anne  some  of  them  are 
said  to  have  privately  negotiated  with  Godolphin  for  permis- 
sion to  purchase  the  town  of  Brentford,  and  to  settle  there  with 
full  privileges  of  trade  ;  but  the  minister,  fearing  to  arouse  the 
spirit  of  religious  intolerance  and  of  commercialjealousy,  refused 
the  application.^  The  great  development  of  industrial  enterprise 
which  followed  the  long  and  prosperous  administration  of  Wal- 
pole  natm'ally  attracted  Jews,  who  were  then  as  now  pre-eminent 
in  commercial  matters,  and  many  of  them  appear  at  this  time 
to  have  settled  in  England  ;  among  others  a  young  Venetian 

'  Tlie  Prioress's  Tale.  »  Blunt's    Hist,   of  the    Jens    in 

«  Pari.  Hist.  xiv.  1373-1374.  England,  p.  72. 

*  Spence's  Anecdotes. 


CH.  II.  THE  JEW   BILL.  285 

Jew,  whose  son  obtained  an  honourable  place  in  English  litera- 
ture, and  whose  grandson  has  been  twice  Prime  Minister  of 
England.  The  object  of  the  Pelhams  was  not  to  naturalise  all 
resident  Jews,  but  simply  to  enable  Parliament  to  pass  special 
Bills  to  naturalise  those  who  applied  to  it,  although  they  had 
not  lived  in  the  colonies  or  been  engaged  in  the  hemp  or  flax 
manufacture. 

As  the  principle  of  naturalisation  had  been  fully  conceded 
by  these  two  Acts,  which  had  been  passed  without  any  difficulty, 
and  had  continued  in  operation  without  exciting  any  murmur, 
as  the  Bill  could  only  apply  to  a  few  rich  men  who  were  pre- 
pared to  undertake  the  expensive  process  of  a  parliamentary 
application,  as  Jews  might  be  naturalised  in  any  other  country  in 
Europe  except  Spain  and  Portugal,'  and  as  they  were  among  the 
most  harmless,  industrious,  and  useful  members  of  the  com- 
munity, it  might  have  been  imagined  that  a  Bill  of  this  nature 
could  scarcely  oflfend  the  most  sensitive  ecclesiastical  conscience. 
"WTien  it  was  brought  forward,  however,  a  general  election  was 
not  far  distant,  the  opponents  of  the  ministry  raised  the  cry 
that  the  Bill  was  an  unchristian  one,  and  England  was  thrown 
into  paroxysms  of  excitement  scarcely  less  intense  than  those 
which  followed  the  impeachment  of  Sacheverell.  There  is  no 
page  in  the  history  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  shows  more 
decisively  how  low  was  the  intellectual  and  political  condition 
of  English  public  opinion.  According  to  its  opponents,  the 
Jewish  Naturalisation  Bill  sold  the  birthright  of  Englishmen 
for  nothing,  it  was  a  distinct  abandonment  of  Christianity,  it 
would  draw  down  upon  England  all  the  curses  which  Providence 
had  attached  to  the  Jews.  The  commercial  classes  complained 
that  it  would  fill  England  with  usurers.  The  landed  classes 
feared  that  ultimately  the  greater  part  of  the  land  of  England 

'  This  at  least  was  stated  in  the  receive  Jews.    An  Ansrver  to  a  Pam- 

debate.     Pari.  Hist.  xiv.  1400,     One  phlet    entitled    '  Considerations    for 

of    the    pamphleteers    against    the  Permitting    Persons    Professing    the 

measure  stated  that  Sweden,  Russia,  Jetvish  Religion  to  be  Naturalised,'  p. 

the  Republic  of  Genoa,  and  a  score  40. 
.  of  the  German  States  also  refused  to 


286  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

would  pass  into  the  bands  of  the  Jews,  who  would  avail  them- 
selves of  their  power  to  destroy  the  Church.  One  Member  of 
Parliament  urged  that  to  give  the  Jews  a  resting-place  in  Eng- 
land would  invalidate  prophecy  and  destroy  one  of  the  principal 
reasons  for  believing  in  the  Christian  religion.  Another  reminded 
the  ministers  that  after  430  years  the  Jews  in  Egypt  had  mus- 
tered 600,000  armed  men,  and  that,  according  to  the  '  Book  of 
Esther,'  they  had  once,  when  they  got  the  upper  hand  in  the 
land  where  they  were  li\ing,  *put  to  death  in  two  days  76,000 
of  those  whom  they  were  pleased  to  call  their  enemies,  without 
either  judge  or  jury."  The  time  might  come,  it  was  suggested, 
when,  through  another  Esther,  they  might  govern  the  destinies 
of  England,  or  when  they  might  even  take  their  seats  as 
Members  of  Parliament.  It  was  stated  that  when  Cromwell 
first  extended  his  protection  to  the  race  some  Asiatic  Jews 
imagined  him  to  be  the  promised  Messiah,  and  even  sent  over 
deputies  to  make  private  inquiries  in  Huntingdonshire,  in  order, 
if  possible,  to  establish  his  Jewish  extraction,  and  it  was  argued 
that  through  a  similar  persuasion  the  Jews  would  probably 
support  another  Cromwell  in  his  attacks  upon  the  Constitution. 
The  Mayor  and  Corporation  of  London  petitioned  against  the 
Bill.  The  clergy  all  over  England  denounced  it.  The  old 
story  of  the  crucifixion  of  Christian  children  by  Jews  was  revived, 
and  the  bishops  who  had  voted  for  the  Bill  were  libelled,  and 
insulted  in  the  streets.  The  measure  had  first  been  introduced 
into  the  House  of  Lords,  and  was  carried  through  without  diffi- 
culty, and  with  the  acquiescence  of  most  of  the  bishops.  It 
passed,  after  a  fierce  opposition,  through  the  Commons,  and 
received  the  royal  assent ;  but  as  the  tide  of  popular  indignation 
rose  higher  and  higher,  the  ministers  in  the  next  year  brought 
forward  and  carried  its  repeal.  Had  they  not  done  so,  it  is 
probable  that  the  election,  which  was  then  imminent,  would 
have  proved  disastrous  to  their  power,  and  they  argued  plausi- 
bly, and  perhaps  justly,  that  in  the  excited  state  of  popular 
feeling  the  Jews  could  not,  if  the  Act  continued  in  force,  live 
safely  in  England.     An  attempt  was  made  by  the  Church  party 


en.  n.  OTHER   SIGNS  OF   IXTOLERANXE.  287 

to  carry  their  victory  further  and  repeal  the  Act  which  natural- 
ised dissenters  from  the  Anglican  creed  who  had  resided  for 
seven  years  in  the  Plantations,  in  so  far  as  it  related  to  the  Jews, 
but  the  Government  resisted,  and  succeeded  in  defeating  the 
attempt.' 

The  agitation  which  was  excited  by  this  very  moderate 
measure  of  the  Pelham  ministry  goes  far  to  justify  the  Whig 
party  for  not  having  done  more  in  the  cause  of  religious  liberty 
during  the  long  period  of  their  ascendancy.  The  feelings  of 
the  country  would  not  allow  it,  and  in  spite  of  the  incontestable 
decline  of  the  theological  spirit,  there  was  still  no  other  question 
on  which  public  opinion  was  so  sensitive.  Nor  was  this  intoler- 
ance confined  to  England,  or  to  the  Church  of  England,  or  to 
the  High  Church  section  of  the  clergy.  In  Scotland  the  hatred 
of  religious  liberty  ran  still  higher.  The  Scotch  preachers 
denoimced  it  with  untiring  vehemence,  and  the  General  Assem- 
bly, in  1702,  presented  a  solemn  address  to  the  Lord  High  Com- 
missioner urging  that  no  motion  '  of  any  legal  toleration  of  those 
of  the  prelatical  principle  might  be  entertained  by  the  Parlia- 
ment,' and  declaring  that  such  a  toleration  would  be  '  to  establish 
iniquity  by  law.' *  In  1697  a  deputation  of  English  Dissenting 
ministers  waited  upon  the  King  to  urge  him  to  interdict  the 
printing  of  any  work  advocating  Socinian  opinions.'  In  1702 
a  Dissenter  named  Emlyn,  being  accused  by  some  Irish  Non- 
conformists, but  witli  the  encouragement  of  the  Archbishops  of 
Armagh  and  Dublin,  was  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  1,000/.  and 
to  lie  in  gaol  till  it  was  paid,  because  he  had  written  against  the 
Trinity.'*  Among  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  one  of 
the  most  active  in  fanning  the  absurd  agitation  on  the  Jewish 

'  See  the  very  curious  discussions  said,    'The    nonconformists    accused 

on  this  Bill.     Pari.  Hint.  xiv.  13GG-  him,  the  conformists  condemned  him, 

1430;    XV.   92-163;    Coxe's   Life  of  the  secular  power  was  called  in,  and 

Pelham,  ii.  245-253,  290-298.  the  cause  ended  in  an  imprisonment 

^  Lathbury"s  Hist,  of  the  Nonjurors,  and  a  very  great  fine,  two  methods  of 

pp.  441-451.  conviction  about  which  the  Gospel  is 

'  Skeat's  Hist,  of  Free  Cliurches,  silent.'— Hee  Runt's  Ileliffious  T/iffV{/ht 

p.  184.  in  England,  ii.  p.  32G. 

*  As    Hoadly    very     sarcastically 


288  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  n 

question  was  Eomaine,  who  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most 
prominent  leaders  of  the  Evangelical  party/ 

One  very  important  step,  however,  was  taken  without  pro- 
voking any  agitation  or  opposition.  The  belief  in  witchcraft, 
which  has  furnished  one  of  the  most  singular  and  tragical  pages 
in  the  history  of  superstition,  had  almost  disappeared  in  Eng- 
land among  the  educated  classes  at  the  time  of  the  Eevolution, 
though  it  was  still  active  in  Scotland  and  the  colonies.  The 
law,  however,  condemning  witches  to  death  still  remained  on 
the  Statute  Book,  and  it  was  not  altogether  a  dead  letter. 
Three  witches  had  been  hung  at  Exeter  in  1682,^  and  even  after 
the  Eevolution  there  had  been  occasional  trials.  Addison  — 
whose  judgment  was  afterwards  echoed  by  Blackstone — speaks 
on  the  subject  with  a  curious  hesitation.  '  I  believe  in  general,' 
he  says,  '  that  there  is  and  has  been  such  a  thing  as  witchcraft, 
but  at  the  same  time  can  give  no  credit  to  any  particular  in- 
stance of  it.'  ^  The  great  clerical  agitation  which  followed  the 
Sacheverell  impeachment  is  said  to  have  produced  a  temporary 
recrudescence  of  the  superstition,*  and  it  was  observed  about  this 
time  that  there  was  scarcely  a  village  in  England  which  did  not 
contain  a  reputed  witch.'  At  the  same  time  those  who  were 
in  authority  steadily  discouraged  the  superstition.  A  woman 
named  Jane  Wenham  having  been  found  guilty  of  the  offence 
in  1712  received  a  free  pardon  at  the  instance  of  the  judge,  in 
spite  of  the  urgent  protest  of  some  of  the  clergy  of  the  county,^ 
and  in  the  same  year  the  death  of  a  suspected  witch  who  had  been 

'  Kyle's  Christian  Leaders  of  the  *' Since  the  reign  of  Dr.  Sacheverell, 
Last  Century.  Cadogan's  Life  of  when  the  clamours  against  freethink- 
Romaine.  ing  began  to  be  loudest,  the  devil 
^  Hutchinson's  Historical  Essay  on  has  again  resumed  his  empire  and 
Witchcraft,  p.  68.  Hutchinson  says  appears  in  the  shape  of  cats,  and 
that  these  were  the  last  judicially  enters  into  confederacy  with  old 
executed  in  England,  but  Dr.  Parr  women  ;  and  several  have  been 
speaks  of  two  having  suffered  at  tryed,  and  many  are  accused  through 
Northampton  in  1705,  and  five  others  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  for  being 
at  the  same  place  in  1722. — Parr's  witches.' — Collins'  Discourse  on  Free- 
Works,  iv.  182  (1828).  thinking,  p.  30. 

*  Spectator,  No.  117.     See  too  the  *  Spectator,  No.  117. 

remarks   of    I>\2,cksionQ.— Comment-  «  Hutchinson,  163-171. 
aries,  book  iv.  c.  4 


CH.  n.  THE   CHANGE   OF  STYLE.  289 

thrown  into  the  water  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  she  would 
sink  or  swim,  and  who  had  perished  during  the  trial,  was  pro- 
nounced by  Chief  Justice  Parker  to  be  murder.'  It  is  one  of 
the  great  glories  of  the  early  Hanoverian  period  that  it  witnessed 
the  abrogation  of  the  sanguinary  enactment  by  which  so  many 
innocent  victims  had  perished.  Chief  Justice  Holt  did  good 
service  to  humanity  in  exposing  tlie  imposture  which  lay  at  the 
root  of  some  cases  he  was  ol)liged  to  try,'^  and  in  1736  the  law 
making  witchcraft  punishable  by  death  was  repealed.  The 
superstition  .long  smouldered  among  the  poorer  classes;  there 
were  several  instances  of  the  murder  of  suspected  witches  ;  and 
Methodism  did  something  to  strengthen  the  belief,  but  as  it 
had  no  longer  the  sanction  of  the  law,  and  as  diseased  imagina- 
tions were  no  longer  excited  by  the  executions,  it  sank  speedily 
into  insignificance.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  Irish  law 
against  witchcraft,  though  long  wholly  obsolete,  remained  on 
the  Statute  Book  till  1818. 

Another  measure  of  a  very  different  kind,  but  also  in  some 
degree  dependent  upon  the  theological  temperature,  belonging 
to  the  period  I  am  considering,  was  the  reform  of  the  calendar. 
The  New  Style,  as  is  well  known,  had  been  first  brought  into 
use  by  Pope  Gregory  XIII.,  in  1582,  and  had  gradually  been 
adopted  by  all  the  Continental  nations,  except  Russia  and 
Sweden,  but  England,  partly  from  natural  conservatism,  and 
partly  from  antipathy  to  the  Pope,  still  resisted,  and  had  at  last 
got  eleven  days  wrong.  The  change  was  carried  on  the  motion 
of  Lord  Chesterfield,  and  with  the  assistance  of  the  eminent 
mathematicians,  Lord  Macclesfield  and  INIr.  Bradley,  under 
the  Pelham  Ministry  in  1751.  The  year  was  henceforth  to 
begin  on  January  1  instead  of  on  March  25 ;  and  in  order  to 
rectify  the  errors  of  the  old  calendar  it  was  ordered  that  the 
day  following  September  2,  1752,  should  be  denominated 
the    14th.      The  old    Duke   of  Newcastle,    whose  timid  and 

'  Ibid.  pp.  175,  176.     Hutchinson,  bear  or  a  bull.' 
who  wrote  in  1718,  says,  *  Our  country  -  Campbell's  Chief  Jmtxces — Life 

people  are  still  as  fond  of  this  custom  of  Holt, 
of  swimniing  as  they  are  of  baiting  a 

VOL.  I.  20 


290      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  n. 

time-serving-  nature  dreaded  beyond  all  things  an  explosion 
of  popular  feeling,  entreated  Chesterfield  not  to  '  stir  matters 
that  had  long  been  quiet,'  or  to  meddle  with  '  new-fangled 
things,'  and  although  the  reform  was  ultimately  carried  with- 
out difficulty,  these  apprehensions  were  not  wholly  ground- 
less. A  widespread  irritation  was  for  a  time  aroused.  Much 
was  said  about  the  profanity  of  altering  saint-days  and  im- 
movable feasts.  At  the  next  election  one  of  the  most  popular 
cries  against  Lord  Macclesfield's  son  was,  'Give  us  back  our 
eleven  days ! '  ^\^len,  many  years  later,  Mr.  Bradley  died  of  a 
lingering  disease,  his  sufferings  were  supposed  by  the  populace 
to  be  a  judgment  due  to  the  part  he  had  taken  in  the  transac- 
tion ;  and  the  feelings  of  many  were  probably  expressed  in  a 
saying  that  was  quoted  during  the  debate  on  the  naturalisation 
of  the  Jews,  '  It  is  no  wonder  he  should  be  for  naturalising  the 
devil  who  was  one  of  those  that  banished  old  Christmas.'  ^ 

There  were,  however,  still  two  classes  of  laws  upon  the 
Statute  Book  which  were  grossly  persecuting,  and  which,  during 
the  early  Hanoverian  period,  were  entirely  unmitigated.  I  mean, 
of  course,  those  against  the  Catholics  and  the  disbelievers  in  the 
Trinity.  The  measures  against  the  former  class  may  no  doubt 
derive  a  very  considerable  palliation  from  the  atrocious  persecu- 
tions of  which  Catholicism  had  been  guilty  in  almost  every 
country  in  which  she  triumphed,  from  the  incessant  plots  against 
the  life  and  power  of  Elizabeth,  and  from  the  intimate  con- 
nection, both  before  and  after  the  Revolution,  between  the 
Catholicism  of  the  Stuarts  and  their  political  conduct  and 
prospects.  Catholicism,  indeed,  never  can  be  looked  upon 
merely  as  a  religion.  It  is  a  great  and  highly  organised 
kingdom,  recognising  no  geographical  frontiers,  governed  by  a 
foreign  sovereign,  pervading  temporal  politics  with  its  manifold 
influence,  and  attracting  to  itself  much  of  the  enthusiasm  which 

•  Pari.  Hist.  xv.  136.     So,  too,  a  See,  on  this  subject,  Lord  Stanhope's 

ballad  against  the  Jew  Bill  begins—  Hist,   of  England,   iii.   340  ;    Maty's 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty  three  -^'/^     "/     Chesterfield,    pp.     320-323; 

The  stae  it  was  changed  to  Popery.  Coxe's     Pelham,    11.    178-179;     and 

—Political  Ballads,  ii.  311 .  Hogarth's  picture  of  an  Election. 


CH,  u.  CATHOLIC  INTOLERANCE.  291 

would  otherwise  flow  in  national  channels.  The  intimate  corre- 
spondence between  its  priests  ia  many  lands,  the  disciplined 
unity  of  their  political  action,  the  almost  absolute  authority 
they  exercise  over  large  classes,  and  their  usually  almost  com- 
plete detachment  from  pm'ely  national  and  patriotic  interests 
have  often  in  critical  times  proved  a  most  serious  political 
danger,  and  tliey  have  sometimes  pursued  a  temporal  policy 
eminently  aggressive,  sanguinary,  unscrupulous,  and  ambitious. 
Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that,  in  the  closing  years  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  spirit 
of  Romish  persecution,  though  gradually  subsiding,  was  still 
far  fi-om  extinct.  Thus  we  find  Stanhope  writing  from  Majorca 
in  1691:  'Tuesday  last  there  were  burnt  here  twenty-seven 
Jews  and  heretics,  and  to-morrow  I  shall  see  executed  above 
twenty  more,  and  Tuesday  next,  if  I  stay  here  so  long,  is 
to  be  another  fiesta,  for  so  they  entitle  a  day  dedicated  to  so 
execrable  an  act.'  ^  In  1706  Wilcox,  who  was  afterwards  Bishop 
of  Rochester,  but  who  was  at  this  time  minister  of  the  English 
factory  at  Lisbon,  wrote  a  letter  to  Burnet  describing  an 
auto-da-fe  in  that  city,  in  whicli  four  persons  were  burnt  in  the 
presence  of  the  King,  and  of  these  one  woman  remained  alive  for 
half-an-hour,  and  one  man  for  more  than  an  hour  in  the  flames, 
vainly  imploring  their  executioners  to  heap  fresh  fagots  on  the 
fire  in  order  to  terminate  their  agony.^  Every  considerable 
town  in  England,  Holland,  and  Protestant  Germany,  contained 
a  colony  of  Frenchmen,  who,  after  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes,  had  been  driven  from  their  homes  by  a  persecution 
of  extreme  ferocity ;  a  long  course  of  the  most  atrocious  cruelties 
had  kindled  the  flame  of  rebellion  in  the  Cevennes,  and  at  the 
time  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  188  French  Protestants  were 
released  by  English  intercession  from  the  galleys.^  In  1717, 
an  assembly  of  seventy-four  Protestants    being    surprised    at 

'  Lord  Stanhope's  Z?(s^.<)/"^«^Zflrt</,  lars  on  persecutions  in  Portugal  in 

i.  107.  Geddes'  tracts,  i.  385-443. 

*  See  this  letter  in  full  in  Chand-  ^  Bolingbroke's   Letters,   iv.   121. 

ler'a  Hist,  of  Persecution  (1736),  p.  See,  too,  Burnet's  Own  Times,  ii.  481. 
287.     See  too  some  curious  particu- 


292  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ii 

Andvire,  the  men  were  sent  to  the  galleys  and  the  women  to 
prison.'  In  1724,  in  the  corrupt  and  generally  sceptical  period 
of  the  Eeo-ency,  a  new  law  was  made  against  the  Protestants  of 
France  which  aggravated  even  the  atrocious  enactments  of 
Lewis  XIV.  By  one  clause  all  who  assembled  for  the  exercise 
of  the  Protestant  worship,  even  in  their  own  homes,  became 
liable  to  lifelong  servitude  in  the  galleys,  and  to  the  confiscation 
of  all  their  goods.  Another  condemned  to  death  any  Protestant 
minister  exercising  any  religious  function  whatever,  and  to  the 
o-alleys  any  witness  who  failed  to  denounce  him.  A  third 
enjoined  all  physicians  to  inform  the  priest  of  the  condition  of 
every  dying  patient,  in  order  that,  whether  he  desired  it  or  not, 
a  Catholic  priest  should  be  present  at  his  deathbed.  A  fourth, 
with  a  rare  refinement  of  ingenious  malice,  rendered  any  Pro- 
testant who,  by  his  religious  exhortation?,  strengthened  a  dying 
relative  in  his  faith,  liable  to  the  galleys  and  to  the  confiscation 
of  his  goods.^  A  Protestant  pastor  was  hung  at  Montpellier  in 
1728  ;  another  would  have  suffered  the  same  fate  in  1732  had 
he  not  succeeded  in  escaping  from  his  prison  ;^  and  277  Pro- 
testants in  Dauphiny  were  condemned  to  the  galleys  in  1745  and 
1746.^  As  late  as  the  Peace  of  Paris,  a  Protestant  minister  at 
Nismes  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford  imploring  the  interces- 
sion of  the  English  Government  in  favour  of  thirty-three  men, 
who  were  in  the  galleys  of  Toulon,  and  of  sixteen  women,  who 
were  imprisoned  in  Languedoc,  for  no  other  offence  than  that  of 
having  attended  Protestant  assemblies.  Many  of  them,  he 
added,  had  remained  in  captivity  for  more  than  thirty  years.^ 

Similar  complaints  came  from  Hungary,  where  the  inter- 
ference of  the  Emperor  with  the  religious  liberty  of  the  Pro- 
testants contributed  largely  to  the  insurrection  of  Eakoczy ; 
from  Silesia,  where  the  same  interference  prepared  the  way  for 
the  ultimate  severance  of  the  province  from  the  Austrian  rule  ; 
from  Poland,  where  the  persecution  fomented  in  1724  by  the 

'  Taine's  Ancien  Regime,  p.  80.  '  Ibid.  p.  302. 

*  Sismondi's  Hist,  des  FnDi^ain,  *  Taine's  Ancien  Regime,  p.  80. 

xix.  241-244.  5  Bedford  Correspondence,  iii.  155. 


CH.  II.  REASONS   FOR  TOLERANCE.  293 

Jesuits  at  Thorn  aroused  the  indignation  of  all  Protestant 
Europe,  and  where  the  complete  exclusion  of  religious  dissi- 
dents from  political  power  in  1733  was  sowing  dissensions  that 
were  the  sure  precursors  of  the  approaching  ruin.  In  the  course 
of  1732  and  the  two  following  years  about  17,000  German  Pro- 
testants were  compelled  by  the  persecution  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Salzburg  to  abandon  their  homes,  and  to  seek  a  refuge  in 
Prussia  or  in  Georgia.  Ten  persons  were  burnt  for  their 
religious  opinions  in  Spain  between  1746  and  1759.  Two 
persons  were  executed,  and  many  others  condemned  to  less 
severe  penalties  by  tlie  Inquisition  in  Portugal  in  1750.' 

These  things  Avill  not  be  forgotten  by  a  candid  judge  in 
estimating  the  policy  of  the  English  Government  towards 
Catholics.  On  the  other  hand,  he  will  remember  that  the 
English  Catholics  were  so  few  and  so  inconsiderable  that  it  was 
absurd  to  regard  them  as  a  serious  danger  to  the  State ;  that 
tliey  had  in  general  shown  themselves  under  the  most  trying 
circumstances  eminently  moderate  and  loyal,  and  that  although 
the  Catholic  priests,  whenever  they  were  in  the  ascendant,  were 
then,  as  ever,  a  persecuting  body,  Catholicism,  as  a  whole,  had 
ceased,  since  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  to  divide  the  interests  of 
Europe.  In  Switzerland,  it  is  true,  a  war  that  was  essentially 
religious  broke  out  between  the  Protestant  and  Catholic 
cantons  as  late  as  1712,  but  in  general  theology  had  very 
little  influence  upon  the  politics  of  Christendom.  They  turned 
mainly  on  the  rivalry  between  the  Catholic  Emperor  and  the 
Catholic  King  of  France.  The  Popes,  who,  as  spiritual  heads 
of  Christendom,  had  employed  all  their  temporal  and  spiritual 
weapons  against  Elizabeth,  had  never  acted  in  this  manner  against 
her  successors.  During  the  struggle  of  the  Revolution  a  great 
part  of  Catholic  Europe  was  on  the  side  of  William,  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  Pope  liimself  was  in  his  favour.  It  may  be  added, 

'See     Ruckle's     ITist.     ii.     109.  Museum.     The  disturbances  at  Thorn 
Carlyles   Frederick    the    Great,   bk.  were  made  the  subject  of  a  special 
ix.  ch.  3,  and  the  curious  collection  article  in  the  treaty  of  Hanover  be- 
ef lists  of  Portuiruese  autos-da-fe  in  tween  England  and  Prussia  in  1725. 
the  eighteenth  century,  in  the  British 


294  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n 

too,  that  the  persecution  of  religious  opinion  and  the  suppression 
of  any  form  of  religious  worship  must  always  appear  peculiarly 
culpable  in  Protestants,  whose  whole  theory  of  religion  is  based 
upon  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  also  that 
religious  liberty,  though  still  rare  and  struggling  in  Europe,  was 
by  no  means  unknown.  In  France,  it  is  true,  it  had  been  destroyed 
by  the  Eevocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  but  in  Germany  it 
existed  to  a  considerable  extent  since  the  Peace  of  Westphalia, 
which  placed  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  States  in  a  position  of 
perfect  equality,  terminated  the  long  contest  for  the  possession 
of  the  ecclesiastical  benefices,  and  in  many  cases  restrained, 
though  it  by  no  means  generally  annulled,  the  power  of  the 
sovereign  to  coerce  his  dissident  subjects.^  In  Prussia,  which 
was  rapidly  becoming  the  most  important  Protestant  Power  of 
Germany,  the  Elector,  Frederick  William,  who  died  in  1688, 
even  contributed  money  for  the  building  of  Catholic  churches, 
and  under  his  successor  the  Catholics  had  almost  every  privilege 
they  could  have  possessed  under  a  ruler  of  their  own  creed.^  In 
Holland  a  system  of  absolute  religious  freedom  was  established, 
and  its  complete  success  was  generally  recognised.  So  perfectly 
were  the  different  religions  in  that  country  blended  into  a 
common  nationality  that  it  was  asserted,  though  probably  with 
some  exaggeration,  that  there  were  no  less  than  4,000  Catholics 
in  the  army  with  which  William  came  over  to  defend  the  Pro- 
testantism of  England.'  Even  in  Ireland,  though  the  Catholic 
majority  were  subject  to  gross  oppression  as  a  conquered  race, 
they  were  in  practice  allowed  during  the  latter  Stuart  reigns  full 
liberty  of  worship,  and  no  religious  disqualification  excluded 
them  from  the  municipalities,  from  the  elective  franchise,  from 
the  magistracy,  or  from  the  Parliament. 

In  England  public  opinion  made  such  a  policy  impossible. 
The  laws  of  Elizabeth  against  the  Catholics  remained,  though 
they  were  but  partially  enforced,  and  these  laws,  among  many 

'The  rather  complicated  provisions  ^  Eanke's  Hist,  of  Prussia  (Eng. 

of  the  treaty  on  this  subject  are  ex-  trans.),  ii.  57. 

plained  at  length  by  Coxe's  House  "  Reresby's  Memoirs    (Ed.    1875), 

uf  Austria,  i.  955-957.  p.  437. 


CH.  II.  THE  FIKE  OF  LONDON.  295 

other  provisions,  compelled  every  Catholic  to  attend  the 
Anglican  service,  suppressed  absolutely,  and  under  crushing 
penalties,  the  celebration  of  the  mass,  proscribed  the  whole 
Catholic  priesthood,  and  made  it  high  treason  for  any  English 
priest  from  beyond  the  sea  to  come  to  England,  for  any  Catholic 
graduate  to  refuse  for  the  third  time  the  oath  of  supremacy,  for 
any  Protestant  to  become  a  Catholic,  or  for  any  Catholic  to  con- 
vert a  Protestant.  Had  such  laws  been  rigorously  enforced 
they  must  have  led  to  a  general  Catholic  emigration  or  have 
dyed  every  scaffold  with  Popish  blood  ;  and,  as  it  was,  many 
Catholics  perished  in  England,  to  whom  it  is  the  merest  sophistry 
to  deny  the  title  of  martyrs  for  their  faith.  The  conspiracy  of 
Guy  Faux  to  blow  up  the  Parliament,  the  fable  of  the  Popish 
plot  which  led  to  the  effusion  of  torrents  of  innocent  blood,  and, 
perhaps,  still  more,  the  baseless  calumny  which  attributed  the 
Fire  of  London  to  the  Papists,  sustained  the  anti-Catholic  fanati- 
cism. This  last  calamity  had,  in  the  words  of  Clarendon, 
'  kindled  another  fire  in  the  breasts  of  men  almost  as  dangerous 
as  that  within  their  houses.'  Panic-stricken  by  the  rapid  pro- 
gress of  the  flames,  half-maddened  by  terror  and  by  despair,  the 
people  at  once  attributed  it  to  deliberate  incendiarism.  The 
Dutch  and  French  were  the  first  objects  of  their  suspicion,  but 
soon  aftef ,  the  Papists  were  included,  and  were  dragged  in  mul- 
titudes to  prison.  A  Portuguese  who,  according  to  the  custom 
of  his  country,  picked  up  a  piece  of  bread  that  was  lying  on  the 
ground,  and  laid  it  on  the  ledge  projecting  from  the  nearest 
house,  was  seized  on  the  charge  of  throwing  in  fire-balls. 
Among  the  crowd  of  terrified  prisoners  was  a  poor  Frenchman, 
whose  brain  appears  to  have  been  turned  by  the  terror  and 
excite'ment  of  the  scene,  and  who  confessed  himself  the  author 
of  the  fire.  He  appears  to  have  been  simply  a  monomaniac,  and 
the  judges  openly  declared  their  utter  disbelief  in  his  disjointed 
and  unsupported  story ;  but  in  the  temper  in  which  men  then 
were  he  was  condemned,  and  the  King  did  not  dare  to  arrest 
his  execution.  Nor  was  the  panic  suffered  to  pass  away.  Al- 
though a  Parliamentary  committee,  after  the  strictest  enquiry. 


296  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

could  find  nothing  whatever  implicating  the  Catholics  (who, 
indeed,  could  have  gained  nothing  by  the  crime),  it  was  deter- 
mined in  the  most  solemn  and  authoritative  manner,  to  brand 
them  as  its  perpetrators.  The  Monument,  erected  in  memo- 
rial of  the  catastrophe  in  one  of  the  most  crowded  thorough- 
fares of  London,  bore  two  Latin  inscriptions,  commemorat- 
ing the  rebuilding  of  the  city,  and  the  mayors  by  whose 
care  the  Monument  was  erected.  The  third  inscription  was  in. 
English,  that  all  might  read  it,  and  it  was  to  the  effect  that 
'  This  pillar  was  set  up  in  perpetual  remembrance  of  the  most 
dreadful  burning  of  this  ancient  city,  begun  and  carried  on  by 
the  treachery  and  malice  of  the  Popish  faction  in  the  beginning 
of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1666,  in  order  to  the  car- 
rying on  their  horrid  plot  for  extirpating  the  Protestant  religion 
and  old  English  liberty,  and  introducing  Popery  and  slavery.' 
In  the  reign  of  James  II.  this  scandalous  inscription  was  taken 
away,  but  it  was  restored  at  the  Eevolution,  and  it  was  not 
finally  removed  till  1831.  Another  and  very  similar  inscription 
was  placed  in  Pudding  Lane,  on  the  spot  where  the  fire  began,  and 
remainfed  there  till  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  when  it  was 
removed  on  account  of  the  crowds  who  gathered  to  read  it.^ 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  more  effectual  de\ice  for 
arousing  the  passions  of  the  people.  In  the  struggle  of  the 
Revolution  a  direct  question  between  Protestantism  and 
Catholicism  was  at  issue,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  consider- 
able attention  should  have  been  paid  to  the  legislation  on  the 
subject.  During  the  whole  period  of  the  Stuarts  the  sovereigns 
had  been  favourable,  and  the  Parliaments  bitterly  hostile,  to  the 
Catholics.  The  former  were  actuated  partly  by  the  belief  that 
while  Puritanism  is  naturally  hostile  to  the  royal  prerogative, 
Catholicism  is  naturally  congenial  to  it,  and  partly  also  by 
religious  sympathy,  by  Catholic  relationships,  and  by  Conti- 
nental alliances.     James  I.  for  a  time  suspended  the  laws  against 

'Jesse's    London,     ii.    227,    311.  Monument  is  well  known : — 

Seymour's  Surrey  of  London,  bk.  ii,  wiiere  London's  column,  pointing  to  the  skies, 

ch.  10.     Continuation  of  the  Lije  ot  Like  a  tall  bully,  lifts  its  head,  and  lies. 
Clarendon.    Pope's    couplet    on    the 


CH.  II.  LAWS  AGAINST  PAPISTS.  297 

recusants,  and  opened  negotiations  with  the  Pope ;  and,  but  for 
the  violent  spirit  then  dominating  in  the  Vatican,  and  the  very 
natural  indignation  aroused  by  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  his  reign 
would  probably  have  witnessed  considerable  mitigations  of  the 
penal  code.  Charles  I.,  when  Prince  of  Wales,  had  made  a 
secret  engagement  witli  France,  on  the  occasion  of  his  French 
marriage,  to  obtain  toleration  for  tlie  Catholics,  and  the  non- 
enforcement  of  the  laws  against  them  was  almost  the  first 
question  that  brought  liira  into  collision  with  his  Parliament. 
The  attempt  of  Charles  II.  to  exercise  a  dispensing  power  in 
favour  of  the  Catholics,  for  the£rst  time  aroused  the  Parliament 
of  the  Restoration  into  opposition ;  while  the  ill-timed,  ill- 
directed,  and  exaggerated  efforts  of  James  to  remove  the 
disabilities  of  his  co-religionists  were  the  main  cause  of  his 
doAvufall.  P'rom  William  also  the  Catholics  had  something  to 
hope.  He  came  to  England,  it  is  true,  as  the  special  repre- 
sentative of  Protestantism,  but  he  came  from  a  country  where 
religious  liberty  was  established,  and  he  was  himself  entirely 
free  from  the  stain  of  intolerance.  In  the  negotiations  tbat 
preceded  his  expedition  lie  had  given  the  Emperor  a  distinct 
assurance  that  he  would  do  his  utmost  to  procure  for  the  Eno-Hsh 
Catholics  a  repeal  of  the  penal  laws ' ;  and  the  declaration  which 
he  issued  upon  his  arrival  in  England  promised  freedom  of 
conscience  to  all  who  would  live  peaceably.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  these  sentiments  exi^ressed  his  real  desire,  and  friend 
and  foe  have  admitted  that  in  the  early  part  of  his  reign  liis 
influence  was  employed  to  prevent  the  enforcement  of  persecutin  in- 
laws against  Catholics.^  It  was,  however,  probably  not  in  his 
power  to  induce  tlie  Parliament  to  repeal  the  penal  laws,  or  to 
•  prevent  it  from  passing  new  laws,  and  he  at  least  never  chose  to 
risk  the  impopularity  of  refusing  his  assent  to  the  persecutiufj- 
laws  which  were  enacted  during  his  reign.  These  laws  were 
maintained  and  were  extended  during  the  first  two  reigns  of  the 

'  See  Ranke's  Hist,  of  Eiujlaad,  iv.  remarkable  note  of  Lord  Dartmouth, 

437.  ii.  225).     Butler's  Histoi'ical  Memoirs 

*  See  the  remarks  of  Burnet  in  his  of  the  English  Catholics,  ii.  pp.  52-53. 
Hist,  of  his  Own,  Times,  ii.  12,  and  the 


298  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  n. 

Hanoverian  period,  and  they  form,  perhaps,   the  darkest  blot 
upon  the  history  of  the   EevoMion.      Thns,  to  omit   mmor 
details,  an  Act  was  passed  in  1699,  by  which  any  Catholic  priest 
convicted  of  celebrating   mass,  or   discharging  any  sacerdotal 
function,  in  England  (except  in  the  house  of  an  ambassador) 
was  made  liable  to  perpetual  imprisonment ;  and,  in  order  that 
this  law  might  not  become  a  dead  letter,  a  reward  of  100^.  was 
offered   for  conviction.     Perpetual  imprisonment  was  likewise 
the  punishment  to  which  any  Papist  became  liable  who  was 
found  g-uilty  of  keeping  a  school,  or  otherwise  undertaking  the 
educatton  of  the  young.     No  parent  might  send  a  child  abroad 
to  be  educated  in  the  Catholic  faith,  under  penalty  of  a  fine  of 
lOOL,  which  was  bestowed  upon  the  informer.     All  persons  who 
did  not,  within  six  months  of  attaining  the  age  of  eighteen,  take 
the  Oath,  not  only  of  Allegiance,  but  also  of  Supremacy,  and 
subscribe   the  declaration   against  transubstantiation,   became 
incapable  of  either  inheriting  or  pm-chasing  land,  and  the  pro- 
perty they  would  otherwise  have  inherited  passed  to  the  next 
Protestant  heir.     By  a  law  which  was  enacted  in  the  first  year 
of  George   I.    all   persons  in   any  civil   or  military  office,  all 
members  of  colleges,  teachers,  preachers,  and  lawyers  of  every 
grade  were  compelled  to  take  the  Oath  of  Supremacy,  which  was 
distinctly  anti-Catholic,  as  well  as  the  Oath  of  Allegiance  and 
the  declaration  against  the  Stuarts.      By  the  same  law  any  two 
justices  of  the  peace  might  at  any  time  tender  to  any  Catholic 
the  Oaths  of  Allegiance  and  Supremacy  if  they  regarded  him  as 
disaffected.  They  might  do  this  without  any  previous  complaint 
or  any  evidence  of  his  disaffection,  and  if  he  refused  to  take 
them  he  was  liable  to  all  the  penalties  of   recusancy,  which 
reduced  him  to  a  condition  of  absolute  servitude.     A  Popish 
recusant  was  debarred  from  appearing  at  court,  or  even  coming 
within  ten  miles  of  London,  from  holding  any  office  or  employ- 
ment,  from  keeping  arms  in  his  house,  from  travelling  more 
than  five  miles  from  home,  unless   by  licence,  under  pain  of 
forfeiting  all  his  goods,  and  from  bringing  any  action  at  law,  or 
suit  in  equity.     A  married  woman  recusant  forfeited  two-thirds 


CH.  II.  MAEYLAND.  299 

of  her  jointure  or  dower,  was  disabled  from  being  executor  or 
administratrix  to  her  husband,  or  obtaining  any  part  of  his 
goods,  and  was  liable  to  imprisonment  unless  her  husband 
redeemed  her  by  a  ruinous  fine.  All  Popish  recusants  within 
three  months  of  conviction,  might  be  called  upon  by  four  jus- 
tices of  the  peace  to  renounce  their  errors  or  to  abandon  the 
kingdom  ;  and  if  they  did  not  depart,  or  if  they  returned  with- 
out tlie  King's  licence,  they  were  liable  to  the  penalty  of  death. 
By  this  Act  the  position  of  the  Catholics  became  one  of  per- 
petual insecurity.  It  furnished  a  ready  handle  to  private 
malevolence,  and  often  restrained  the  Catholics  from  exercising 
even  their  legal  rights.  Catholics  who  succeeded  in  keeping 
their  land  were  compelled  to  register  their  estates,  and  all  future 
conveyances  and  wills  relating  to  them.  They  were  subjected 
by  an  annual  law  to  a  double  land-tax,  and  in  1722  a  special 
tax  was  levied  upon  their  property.' 

A  legislation  animated  by  the  same  spirit  extended  to  other 
portions  of  the  empire.  In  the  English  colonies  in  North 
America  there  existed,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  an  amount  of  religious  liberty  considerably  gi-eater 
than  had  yet  been  established  in  Em-ope.  The  Virginian  Epis- 
copalians, it  is  true,  proscribed  the  Puritans  and  Catholics,  and 
the  New  England  Puritans  proscribed  and  persecuted  the  Epis- 
copalians and  the  Quakers  ;  but  the  constitutions  of  the  Quaker 
States,  and  the  constitution  of  Ehode  Island,  which  was  foimded 
by  Eoger  Williams  in  1662,  laid  down,  in  the  most  emphatic 
and  unqualified  terms,  the  doctrine  of  complete  relioious 
liberty.  It  is,  however,  a  remarkable  fact  that  Maryland, 
which  was  founded  by  the  Catholic  Lord  Baltimore,  as  early  as 
1632,  and  which  contained  a  large  proportion  of  Catholics 
among  its  earliest  colonists,  preceded  them  in  this  path.  It 
accorded  perfect  freedom  to  all  Protestant  seots,  welcomed 
alike  the  persecuted  Puritans  of  Virginia  and  the  persecuted 

'  Blackstone,bk.  iv.  ch.  4.  Butler's  and  12  Wm.  III.  c.  4 ;  1  Geo.  I.  Stat.  2. 
JTist.  Memoirs  of  the  EiirjUgh  Catholics,  c.  13;  1  Geo.I.  Slat.  2.  c.  55;  3  Geo.  1. 
ch.   xxxiv.    The  chief  laws  were,  11       c.  18. 


300  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

Episcopalians  of  Massachusetts,  granted  them  every  privilege 
which  was  possessed  by  the  Catholics,  and  exhibited,  for  the 
first  time  since  the  Keformation,  the  spectacle  of  a  Govern- 
ment actino-  with  perfect  toleration  and  a  steady  and  unflinch- 
ing impartiality  towards  all  sects  of  Trinitarian  Christians. 
Something,  no  doubt,  has  been  said  with  truth  to  qualify  its 
merit.  The  measm-e  was  a  defensive  one.  The  toleration  was 
only  extended  to  the  believers  in  the  Trinity.  The  terms  of 
the  charter  would  have  made  the  suppression  of  the  Anglican 
worship  illegal;  but  still  the  fact  remains, that,  so  far  as  Trini- 
tarian Christians  were  concerned,  the  legislators  of  Maryland, 
who  were  in  a  great  measure  Catholic,  undertook  to  try  the 
experiment,  not  only  of  complete  religious  toleration,  but  also 
of  complete  religious  equality ;  and  that,  at  a  time  and  in  a 
country  where  they  were  almost  entirely  uncontrolled,  they  ful- 
filled their  promise  with  perfect  fidelity.  In  1649,  when  the 
Legislature  contained  both  Protestants  and  Catholics,  a  law  was 
made,  solemnly  enacting  that  '  no  person  within  this  province, 
professing  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  shall  be  in  any  way 
troubled,  molested,  or  discountenanced  for  his  or  her  religion,  or 
in  the  free  exercise  thereof ; '  and  by  the  Catholics,  at  least,  the 
promise  of  this  law  was  never  broken.  The  shameful  sequel  is 
soon  told.  The  Protestants  speedily  multiplied  in  the  pro- 
vince. They  outnumbered  the  Catholics,  and  they  enslaved 
them.  The  aristocratic  constitution  of  the  State,  which  pro- 
duced a  strong  democratic  opposition  to  Lord  Baltimore, 
assisted  them,  and  the  Eevolution  in  England  gave  the  signal 
for  the  complete  destruction  of  religious  liberty  in  Maryland. 
The  Catholics  were  excluded  from  all  prominent  offices  in  the 
State  which  a  Catholic  had  founded.  Anglicanism  was  made 
an  Established  Church,  and  in  1704  the  mass  was  forbidden, 
the  priesthood  were  proscribed,  and  no  Catholic  was  any  longer 
permitted  to  educate  the  young.  Laws  of  a  very  similar 
character  were  enacted  in  New  York,  and  in  other  American 
States;  and  even  Rhode  Island,  which  had  been  still  more 
tolerant   than   Maryland  — for   it   extended    its   protection   to 


CH.  II.  the:  tkeaty  of  LDIERICK  301 

disbelievers  in  the  Trinity— appears  to  have  followed  the  ex- 
ample.' 

In  Ireland  also  the  Eevolution  was  speedily  followed  by  the 
penal  code.  The  Catholic  population  had  naturally  remained 
faithful  to  their  sovereign,  whose  too  zealous  Catholicism  was  in 
the  eyes  of  the  English  his  greatest  fault ;  and  the  triumph  of 
William,  which  brought  many  benefits  to  England,  consigned 
Ireland  to  the  most  hopeless  and  the  most  degrading  servitude. 
For  the  third  time  an  immense  proportion  of  the  soil  was  torn 
from  its  native  owners,  and  bestowed  upon  foreigners  and 
enemies,  and  nearly  all  the  talent,  the  energy,  the  ambition  of 
the  nation  was  driven  to  the  Continent.  One  hope,  however, 
remained.  At  a  time  when  the  war  was  going  decidedly 
against  the  Catholics,  but  was  still  by  no  means  terminated, 
when  Limerick  was  still  far  from  captm^ed,  when  the  approach 
of  winter,  the  prospect  of  pestilence  arising  from  the  heavy 
floods,  the  news  of  succom-s  on  the  way  fi'om  France,  and  the 
dangers  of  another  insurrection  at  home  made  the  situation  of 
the  besiegers  very  grave,  the  Irish  generals  agreed  to  surrender 
the  city,  and  thus  terminate  the  war,  if  by  doing  so  they  could 
secure  for  their  people  religious  liberty.  The  consideration 
they  offered  was  a  very  valuable  one,  for  the  prolongation  of  the 
war  till  another  spring  would  have  been  full  of  danger  to  the 
imsettled  government  of  William,  and  the  stipulations  of  the 
Irish  in  favour  of  religious  liberty  Avere  given  the  very  first  place 
in  the  treaty  tliat  was  signed.  The  period  since  the  Eeforma- 
tion  in  which  the  Irish  Catholics  were  most  unmolested  in  their 
worship  was  the  reign  of  Charles  II.;  and  the  first  article  of 
the  Treaty  of  Limerick  stipulated  that  '  the  Eoman  Catholics  of 
this  kingdom  shall  enjoy  such  privileges  in  the  exercise  of  their 
religion  as  are  consistent  with  the  laws  of  Ireland,  or  as  they- 
did  enjoy  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II, ;  and  their  Majesties,  as 

'  Bancroft's   Hist,  of  the    United  lias    been    asserted,    and    that    tlie 

States,  ch.  vii.,  xix.     Recent  inves-  majority  in  the  Legislature  of  1G49 

tigations    show    that    the     original  whicla  passed  the  Toleration  Act  was 

tolerance  of  Maryland  was  less  ex-  Protestant, 
clusively  the  work  of  Catholics  than 


302  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

soon  as  their  affairs  will  permit  them  to  summon  a  Parlia- 
ment in  this  kingdom,  will  endeavour  to  procure  the  said 
Eoman  Catholics  such  further  security  as  may  preserve  them 
from  any  disturbance  upon  the  account  of  their  said  reli- 
gion.' The  ninth  article  determined  that  '  the  oath  to  be  admi- 
nistered to  such  Eoman  Catholics  as  submit  to  their  Majesties' 
government  shall  be  the  oath  of  allegiance,  and  no  other.' 
These  articles  were  signed  by  the  Lords  Justices  of  Ireland, 
and  ratified  by  their  Majesties  under  the  Great  Seal  of 
England. 

Such  a  treaty  was  very  reasonably  regarded  as  a  solemn 
charter  guaranteeing  the  Irish  Catholics  against  any  fm'ther 
penalties  or  molestation  on  account  of  their  religion.  It  is  true 
that  the  laws  of  Elizabeth  against  Catholicism  remained  un- 
repealed, but  they  had  become  almost  wholly  obsolete,  and  as  they 
were  not  enforced  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  it  was  assumed 
that  they  could  not  be  enforced  after  the  Treaty  of  Limerick. 
It  is  true  also  that  the  sanction  of  Parliament  was  required  for 
the  legal  validity  of  the  treaty,  but  that  sanction  could  not, 
without  a  grave  breach  of  faith,  be  withheld  from  an  engagement 
so  solemnly  entered  into  by  the  Grovernment,  at  a  time  when 
Parliament  was  not  sitting,  and  in  order  to  obtain  a  great  mili- 
tary advantage.  The  imposition  upon  the  Irish  Catholics,  with- 
out any  fresh  provocation,  of  a  mass  of  new  and  penal  legislation 
intended  to  restrict  or  extinguish  their  worship,  to  banish  their 
prelates,  and  to  afflict  them  with  every  kind  of  disqualification, 
disability,  and  deprivation  on  account  of  their  religion,  was  a 
direct  violation  of  the  plain  meaning  of  the  treaty.  Those  who 
signed  it  undertook  that  the  Catholics  should  not  be  in  a  worse 
position,  in  respect  to  the  exercise  of  their  religion,  than  they 
had  been  in  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and  they  also  under- 
took that  the  influence  of  the  Government  should  be  promptly 
exerted  to  obtain  such  an  amelioration  of  their  condition  as  would 
secure  them  from  the  possibility  of  disturbance.  Construed 
in  its  plain  and  natural  sense,  interpreted  as  every  treaty  should 
be  by  men  of  honour,  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  amounted  to  no 


cH.  II.  THE   IRISH   PENAL   CODE.  303 

less  than  this.'  The  public  faith  was  pledged  to  its  observance, 
and  the  well-known  sentiments  of  William  appeared  an  additional 
guarantee.  "NVilliam  was,  indeed,  a  cold  and  somewhat  selfish  man, 
and  the  admirable  courage  and  tenacity  which  he  invariably  dis- 
played when  his  own  designs  and  ambition  were  in  question  were 
seldom  or  never  manifested  in  any  disinterested  cause,  but  he 
was  at  least  eminently  tolerant  and  enlightened,  and  he  had 
actually  before  the  battle  of  Aghrim  offered  the  Irish  Catholics 
the  free  exercise  of  their  religion,  half  the  churches  in  the 
kingdom,  and  the  moiety  of  their  ancient  possessions.^  Such 
an  offer  is  alone  sufficient  to  stamp  him  as  a  great  statesman, 
and  should  have  saved  his  memory  from  many  eulogies  which 
are  in  truth  the  worst  of  calumnies.  It  must  be  observed,  how- 
ever, that  William,  who  repeatedly  refused  his  assent  to  English 
Acts  which  he  regarded  as  inimical  to  his  authority,  never 
offered  any  serious  or  determined  opposition  to  the  anti-Catholic 
laws  which  began  in  his  reign.  It  must  be  observed  also  that 
the  penal  code,  which  began  under  William,  which  derived  its 
worst  features  under  Anne,  and  which  was  largely  extended  under 
George  I.  and  George  II.,  was  entirely  unprovoked  by  any  active 
disloyalty  on  the  part  of  the  Catholics.  To  describe  the  Irish 
Catholics  as  having  manifested  an  incurably  rebellious  and  un- 
grateful disposition  because,  in  the  contest  of  the  Kevolution, 
they  took  the  part  of  the  legitimate  and  hereditary  sovereign,  to 
whom  all  classes  had  sworn  allegiance,  and  whose  title  when  they 
took  up  arms  had  not  been  disputed  by  any  act  of  the  Irish 

•  I  may  here  quote  the  opinion  of  ablj'  to  the  sense  of  the  article  "from 

Burke.     Having  quoted  the  lirst<  and  any  disturbance  on  account  of  their 

ninth  articles,  which  I  have  noticed  religion,"  or  rather  whetlier  on  that 

above,  he  proceeds :    '  Compare  this  account  there  is  a  single  right  of 

latter  article  with  the  penal  laws  as  nature  or  benefit  of  society  which  has 

they  are  stated  in  the  second  chapter,  not  been  either  totally  taken  away  or 

and  judge  whether  they  seem  to  be  considerably  impaired.' — I't-aets  on  the 

the  public  acts  of  the  same  powers,  Pojienj  Laivs. 

and  observe  whdther  other  oaths  are  *  See    a    letter    of     Sir    Charles 

tendered  to  them,  and   under  what  Wogan    (nephew    of    Tyrconncl,    to 

penalties.    Compare  the  former  with  whom  the  proposition  was  made)  to 

the  same  laws  from  the  beginning  to  Swift.     Swiffs   Works  (Scott "s   ed.), 

the  end.andjudgewhetherthe Roman  xviii.,  p.  13. 
,  Catholics  have  been  preserved  agree- 


304  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

Parliament,  is  a  calumny  so  grotesque  and  so  transparent  that  it 
could  only  have  been  resorted  to  by  those  advocates  of  persecu- 
tion who  Avould  stoop  to  any  quibble  in  their  cause.  ^  And,  at 
all  events,  after  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  had  been  signed,  dming 
the  lono-  agony  of  the  penal  laws  no  rebellion  took  place. 
About  14  000  Irish  soldiers  had  at  once  passed  into  the  French 
service  and  a  steady  stream  of  emigration  soon  carried  off  all 
the  Catholic  energy  from  the  country.  Deprived  of  their  natural 
leaders  sunk  for  the  most  part  in  the  most  brutal  ignorance 
and  in  the  most  abject  poverty,  the  Irish  Catholics  at  home 
remained  perfectly  passive,  while  both  England  and  Scotland 
were  convulsed  by  Jacobitism.  It  is  a  memorable  fact  that  the 
ferocious  law  of  1703,  which  first  reduced  the  Irish  Catholics  to  a 
condition  of  hopeless  servitude,  does  not  allege  as  the  reason  for 
its  provisions  any  political  crime.  It  was  called  '  An  Act  to  pre- 
vent the  further  growth  of  Popery.'  It  was  justified  in  its 
preamble  on  the  ground  that  the  Papists  still  continued  in  their 
gross  and  dangerous  errors,  that  some  Protestants  had  been  per- 
verted to  Popery,  and  that  some  Papists  had  refused  to  make 
provision  for  their  Protestant  children.  A  considerable  military 
force  was,  indeed,  kept  in  Ireland,  but  this  was  chiefly  because 
the  ministers  desired  to  keep  under  arms  a  more  numerous 
standing  anny  than  Parliament  would  tolerate  in  England,  and 
also  to  throw  upon  the  Irish  revenue  a  great  part  of  the  burden  ; 
and  whenever  serious  danger  arose,  a  large  proportion  was  at 
once  withdrawn.  The  evidence  we  possess  on  this  subject  is 
cmriously  complete.  In  the  gi-eat  rebellion  of  1715  not  a  single 
overt  act  of  treason  was  proved  against  the  Catholics  in  Ireland, 
and  at  a  time  when  civil  war  was  raging  both  in  England  and 
Scotland  the  country  remained  so  profoundly  tranquil  that  the 

•  '  The  peculiar  situation  of  that  ment  was  uniformly  continued  under 

country '  [Irelandl,  says  Macpherson,  the  name  of  the  Prince  from  whom 

'  seems  to  have  been  overlooked  in  the  the  servants  of  the  Crown  had  derived 

contest.     The  desertion  upon  which  their    commissions.     James    himself 

the  deprivation  of  James  had  been  had  for  more  than  seventeen  months 

founded  in  England  had  not  existed  exercised  the  royal  function  in  Ireland, 

in  Ireland.  The  Lord-Lieutenancy  had  He  was  certainly  de  facto,  if  not  de 

retained  its  allegiance.    The  Govern-  jure,  'king.'— Hist,  of  Great  Britain. 


CH.  n.  CIVIL  DISABILITIES  OF  IRISH   CATHOLICS.  305 

Grovernment  sent  over  several  regiments  to  Scotland  to  subdue 
the  Jacobites.'  In  1719,  wlien  the  alarm  of  an  invasion  of 
England  was  very  great,  the  Duke  of  Bolton,  who  was  then  Lord 
Lieutenant,  wrote  to  the  Government  that  if  they  did  not  fear  a 
foreign  invasion  of  Ireland  they  might  safely  withdraw  the 
greater  part  of  the  army  for  other  sernces  ;  and  he  only  m-ged 
that  the  nation,  on  account  of  its  extreme  poverty,  might  be 
relieved  from  the  necessity  of  paying  the  troops  during  their 
absence.  A  few  weeks  later  a  leading  official,  writing  from 
Dublin  Castle,  states  that  seven  Irish  regiments  were  at  this 
time  out  of  the  kingdom,  that  tliey  were  still  paid  from  the 
Irish  revenue,  and  that  four  more  were  about  to  embark.-  The 
next  great  Jacobite  alarm  was  in  1722,  and  in  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  danger  six  regiments  were  sent  from  Ireland  to 
England.^  The  Lord  Lieutenant  vainly  asked  that  they  might 
be  paid,  while  in  England,  from  the  English  revenue,  and  his 
request  being  refused  he  begged  that  they  might  return  as  soon 
as  possible,  not  on  account  of  any  danger  in  Ireland,  but  because 
it  was  '  reasonable  that  the  advantages  of  entertaining  those 
regiments  should  accrue  to  that  kingdom  from  which  they  re- 
ceived their  pay.'  *  In  1725,  Swift,  who  had  no  sympathy  with 
the  Catholics,  declared  that  in  Ireland  the  Pretender's  party  was 
at  an  end,  and  that  '  the  Papists  in  general,  of  any  substance  or 
estates,  and  their  priests  almost  universally,  are  what  we  call 
Whigs  in  the  sense  whicli  by  that  word  is  generally  under- 
stood.'*     In  the  great  rebellion  of  1745,  when  Scotland  was 

'  Memoires  de  Bei'JvicJ/,  ii.  159.  we  have  done  so  since  his  Majesty's 

^  See  the  letters  of  the  Duke  of  accession  to  the  throne,  and  withal 

Bolton  of   July  8  and   July  25,  and  preserved    the    kingdom    from    any 

that  of  Mr.  Webster,  of  August  6, 1719,  insurrection  or    rebellion,   -which   is 

MSS.  English  Eecord-office.  more  than  can  be  said  for  England 

^  'We  are  sending  off  six  regi-  or    Scotland.'     Archbishop   King  to 

ments  to  assist  you.  One  would  think,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (May, 

considering  the  number  of  Papists  we  1"22),    British    Museum   MSS.   add. 

have  here,  that  our  gentry  are  for  the  6117. 

most  part   in   England,  and  all  our  *  The  Duke  of    Grafton  to    the 

money  goes   there,   that  we   should  Lords  Justices,  November  24,  1722. 

rather  expect  help  from  you  in  any  MS.  Irish  State  Paper  OiEce. 
distress,  than  send  you  forces  to  pro-  *  Seventh  Brapier'i  Letter 

tect  you.     Yet  this  is  the  third  time 

VOL.  I.  -21 


306  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ii. 

for  a  time  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  the  Pretender,  when  the  High- 
land army  had  marched  into  the  heart  of  England,  and  when 
the  Protestant  succession  was  very  seriously  endangered,  there 
was  not  a  ripple  of  agitation  in  Ireland ;  and  soon  after  the 
struoole  was  over,  Archbishop  Stone,  the  Protestant  Primate, 
delivered  in  the  House  of  Lords  the  most  emphatic  testimony 
to  the  loyalty  of  the  Catholics.  He  declared  '  that  in  the  year 
1747,  after  that  rebellion  was  entirely  suppressed,  happening  to 
be  in  England,  he  had  an  opportunity  of  perusing  all  the  papers 
ot  the  rebels  and  their  correspondents,  which  were  seized  in  the 
custody  of  JNIurray,  the  Pretender's  secretary,  and  that  after 
having  spent  much  time  and  taken  great  pains  in  examining 
them  (not  without  some  share  of  the  then  common  suspicion 
that  there  might  be  some  private  understanding  and  intercom-se 
between  them  and  the  Irish  Catholics),  he  could  not  discover  the 
least  trace,  hint,  or  intimation  of  such  intercom-se  or  correspon- 
dence in  them,  or  of  any  of  the  latter's  favouring  or  abetting, 
or  having  been  so  much  as  made  acquainted  with,  the  designs  or 
proceedings  of  these  rebels.'^  Everything,  indeed,  connected  with 
this  history  corroborates  the  assertion  of  Burke,  that  '  all  the  penal 
laws  of  that  unparalleled  code  of  oppression  were  manifestly  the 
effects  of  national  hatred  and  scorn  towards  a  conquered  people 
whom  the  victors  delighted  to  trample  upon  and  were  not  at  all 
afraid  to  provoke.  They  were  not  the  effect  of  their  fears,  but  of 
their  security Whilst  that  temper  prevailed,  and  it  pre- 
vailed in  all  its  force  to  a  time  within  our  memory,  every  measure 
was  pleasing  and  popular  just  in  proportion  as  it  tended  to  harass 
and  ruin  a  set  of  people  who  were  looked  upon  as  enemies  to  God 
and  man,  and,  indeed,  as  a  race  of  savages  who  were  a  disgrace 
to  human  nature  itself.'  ^ 

Almost  all  the  great  persecutions  of  history,  those  of  the 
early  Christians,  of  Catholics  and  Protestants  on  the  Continent, 
and,  after  the  Revolution,  of  Catholics  in  England,  were  directed 

'  Cwcrj's  State  of  the  IrishCatholics,      pole,  Memoirs  of  George  III.  p.  278. 
ii.  p.  261.     See  also,  on  the  profound  ^  Burke's  Letter  to  Sir  Hercules 

tranquillity  of  Ireland,  Horace  Wal-      Langrishe. 


CH.  II.  CIVIL  DISABILITIES  OF  IRISH  CATHOLICS.  307 

against  small  miuorities.  It  was  the  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  the  Irish  penal  code  that  its  victims  constituted  at  least 
three- fourths  of  the  nation,  and  that  it  was  deliberately  intended 
to  demoralise  as  well  as  degrade.  Its  enactments  may  be 
divided  into  different  groups.  One  group  was  intended  to 
deprive  the  Catholics  of  all  cinl  life.  By  an  Act  of  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament  they  were  forbidden  to  sit  in  that  of  Ireland.' 
They  were  afterwards  deprived  of  the  elective  suflfrage,  ex- 
cluded from  the  corporations,  from  the  magistracy,  from  the  bar, 
from  the  bench,  from  the  grand  juries,  and  from  the  vestries. 
They  could  not  be  sheriffs  or  solicitors,  or  even  gamekeepers 
or  constables.  They  were  forbidden  to  possess  any  arms ; 
and  any  two  justices,  or  mayor,  or  sheriff,  might  at  any  time 
issue  a  search  warrant  to  break  into  their  houses  and  ransack 
them  for  arms,  and  if  a  fowling-piece  or  a  flask  of  powder  was 
discovered  they  were  liable  either  to  fine  or  imprisonment  or  to 
wliipping  and  the  pillory.  They  were,  of  course,  excluded  on 
the  same  grounds  from  the  army  and  navy.  They  could  not 
even  possess  a  horse  of  the  value  of  more  than  51. ,  and  any 
Protestant  on  tendering  that  sum  could  appropriate  the  hunter  or 
the  carriage  horse  of  his  Catholic  neighbour.^  In  his  owncoimtry 
the  Catholic  was  only  recognised  by  the  law,  '  for  repression 
and  punishment.'  The  Lord  Chancellor  Bowes  and  the  Chief 
Justice  Eobinson  both  distinctly  laid  down  from  the  bench  '  that 
the  law  does  not  suppose  any  such  person  to  exist  as  an  Irish 
Eoman  Catholic'  * 

The  effect  of  these  measures  was  to  offer  the  strongest  induce- 
ments to  all  men  of  ability  and  enterprise  to  conform  outwardly 
to  the  dominant  creed.  If  they  did  not,  every  path  of  ambi- 
tion and  almost  all  means  of  livelihood  were  closed  to  them, 
and  they  were  at  the  same  time  exposed  to  the  most  constant, 

'  3   William    and    Marj',   ch.    2.  Anne,  c.  6 ;    8  Anne,  c.  3 ;    2  George 

English.     The  cither  measures  of  the  I.  c.  10;    6  George  I.  c.  10;    1  George 

code  were  enacted  by  the  Irish  par-  II.  c.  9 ;   9  George  II.  c.  3 ;   15  and 

liament  and  will  be  found  in  the  Irish  16  George  III.  c.  21. 
Statutes.  *  Scully  on  the   Penal  Laws,  p. 

2  7  William  IH.  c.  5  ;   10  William  344. 
in.  c.  8  and   13;    2  Anne,  c.  6;    6 


308  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURy.  ch.  ii. 

galling,  and  humiliating  tyranny.  The  events  of  the  Eevolution 
had  divided  the  people  into  opposing  sections  bitterly  hostile  to 
each  other.  The  most  numerous  section  had  no  rights,  while 
the  whole  tendency  of  the  law  was  to  produce  in  the  dominant 
minority,  already  flushed  with  the  pride  of  conquest  and  with 
recent  confiscations,  all  the  vices  of  the  most  insolent  aristocracy. 
Eeligious  animosity,  private  quarrels,  simple  rapacity,  or  that 
mere  love  of  the  tyrannical  exercise  of  despotic  power  which  is 
so  active  a  principle  in  human  affairs,  continually  led  to  acts  of 
the  most  odious  oppression  which  it  was  dangerous  to  resent  and 
impossible  to  resist.  The  law  gave  the  Protestant  the  power  of 
inflicting  on  the  Catholic  intolerable  annoyance.  To  avoid  it, 
he  readily  submitted  to  illegal  tyranny,  and  e«'en  under  the 
most  extreme  wrong  it  was  hopeless  for  him  to  look  for  legal 
redress.  All  the  influence  of  property  and  office  was  against 
him,  and  every  tribunal  to  which  he  could  appeal  was  occupied 
by  his  enemies.  The  Parliament  and  the  Government,  the  cor- 
poration which  disposed  of  his  city  property,  the  vestry  which 
taxed  him,  the  magistrate  before  whom  he  carried  his  complaint, 
the  solicitor  who  drew  up  his  case,  the  barrister  who  pleaded  it, 
the  judge  who  tried  it,  the  jury  who  decided  it,  were  all  Protest- 
ants. Of  all  tyrannies,  a  class  tyranny  has  been  justly  described 
as  the  most  intolerable,  for  it  is  ubiquitous  in  its  operation,  and 
weighs,  perhaps,  most  heavily  on  those  whose  obscurity  or  dis- 
tance would  withdraw  them  from  the  notice  of  a  single  despot ; 
and  of  all  class  tyrannies,  perhaps  the  most  odious  is  that  which 
rests  upon  religious  distinctions  and  is  envenomed  by  religious 
animosities.^     To  create  such  a  tyranny  in  Ireland  was  the  first 

'  We  have  a  curious  illustration  coals  and  employs  porters  of  his  own 

of    the    operation    of    the  religious  persuasion  to  carry  the  same  to  cus- 

distinctions  in  the  himiblest  spheres,  tomers,  by  which  the  petitioners  are 

in  the  following  notice  in  the  Commons  hindered  from  their  small  trade  and 

Journals.     '  A  petition  of  one  Edward  gains.'     The  petition  was  referred  to 

Spragg  and  others  in  behalf  of  them-  the  Committee  of  Grievances  to  report 

selves  and  other  Protestant  porters  upon    it    to    the    House.  —  CWi»w>k^ 

in   and  about  the    city  of    Dublin,  Journals,  v.  2,  p.  699. 
complaining  that  one  Darby  Ryan,  a  Of   the  effect  of  the  laws  on  the 

captain  under  the  late  King  James,  higher  classes  we  may  judge  from  the 

and  a  Papist,  buys  up  whole  cargoes  of  testimony  of  Burke.   '  bure  I  am  that 


cs.  n.  EDUCATIONAL  DISABILITIES.  309 

object  of  the  penal  laws,  and  the  effect  upon  the  Catholics  was 
what  mi<^ht  have  been  expected.  Great  numbers,  by  dishonest 
and  liypocritical  compliances,  endeavoured  to  free  themselves 
from  a  position  that  was  intolerable.  The  mass  of  the  people 
gradually  acquired  the  vices  of  slaves.  They  were  educated 
through  long  generations  of  oppression  into  an  inveterate  hos- 
tility to  the  law,  and  were  taught  to  look  for  redress  in  illegal 
violence  or  secret  combinations. 

A  second  object  of  the  penal  laws  was  to  reduce  the  Catho- 
lics to  a  condition  of  the  most  extreme  and  brutal  ignorance. 
As  Burke  has  justly  said  :  '  To  render  men  patient  under  such  a 
deprivation  of  all  the  rights  of  human  nature,  everything 
which  would  give  them  a  knowledge  or  feeling  of  those  riglits 
was  rationally  forbidden.''  The  legislation  on  the  subject  of 
Catholic  education  may  be  briefly  described,  for  it  amounted 
simply  to  universal,  unqualified,  and  unlimited  proscription. 
The  Catholic  was  excluded  from  the  University.  He  was  not 
permitted  to  be  the  guardian  of  a  child.  It  was  made  penal  for 
him  to  keep  a  school,  to  act  as  uslier  or  private  tutor,  or  to 
send  his  children  to  be  educated  abroad  ;  and  a  reward  of  1 0^. 
was  offered  for  the  discovery  of  a  Popish  schoolmaster.^  In 
1733,  it  is  true,  charter  schools  were  established  by  Primate 
Boulter,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Catholics ;  but  these  schools — 
which  were  supported  by  public  funds — were  avowedly  in- 
tended, by  bringing  up  the  young  as  Protestants,  to  extirpate 
the  religion  of  their  parents.  The  alternative  offered  by  law  to 
the  Catholics  was  that  of  absolute  and  compulsory  ignorance  or 
of  an  education  directly  subversive  of  their  faith. 

-there  have  been  thousands  in  Ireland  who    could    never    find    their    way 

who  have    never  conversed   with   a  beyond  the  stable.     I  well  remember 

Roman  Catholic  in  their  whole  lives,  a  great,  and  in  many  respects  a  good 

unless  they  happened  to  talk  to  their  man,  who  advertised  for  a  blacksmith, 

gardeners'  workmen,  or  to  ask  their  but  at  the  same  time  added,   "  he 

way  when  they  had  lost  it  in  their  must  be  a  Protestant." ' — -Letter  to  Sir 

sports ;   or,  at  best,  who  had  known  //.  I.angrishe. 

them  only  as  footmen  or  other  domes-  '  Letter  to  a  Peer  of  Ireland  on  the 

tics  of  the  second  and  third  order ;  and  Penal  Laws. 

so  averse  were  they  some  time  ago  to  -'  7  William  III.  c.  4  ;  2  Anne,  c.  6  ; 

•have  them   near  their  persons,  that  8  Anne,  c.  3. 
they  would  not  employ  even  those 


310  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

The  operation  of  these  laws  alone  might  have  Leen  safely 
trusted  to  reduce  the  Catholic  population  to  complete  degrada- 
tion •  but  there  were  many  other  provisions,  intended  to  check 
any  rising  spirit  of  enterprise  that  miglit  appear  among  them, 
and  to  prevent  any  ray  of  hope  from  animating  their  lot.  In 
the  acquisition  of  personal  property,  it  is  true,  there  is  but 
little  in  the  way  of  restriction  to  be  added.  By  the  laws  I 
have  described,  the  immense  majority  of  the  Irish  people  were 
excluded,  in  their  own  country,  from  almost  every  profession, 
and  from  every  Government  office,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest, 
and  they  were  placed  under  conditions  that  made  the  growth  of 
industrial  virtues  and  the  formation  of  an  enterprising  and 
aspiring  character  wholly  impossible.  They  were  excluded  from 
a  great  part  of  the  benefit  of  the  taxes  they  paid.  They  were  at 
the  same  time  compelled  to  pay  double  to  the  militia,  and  in  case 
of  war  with  a  Catholic  power,  to  reimburse  the  damage  done  by 
the  enemies'  privateers.  They  could  not  obtain  the  freedom  of  any 
town  corporate,  and  were  only  suffered  to  carry  on  their  trades 
in  their  native  cities,  on  condition  of  paying  special  and  vexatious 
impositions  known  by  the  name  of  quarterage.  They  were  for- 
bidden, after  a  certain  date,  to  take  up  their  abodes  in  the  im- 
portant cities  of  Limerick  and  Galway,  or  to  purchase  property 
within  their  walls  ;  and  their  progress  in  many  industrial  careei-s 
was  effectually  trammelled  by  the  law  already  referred  to,  prevent- 
ing them  from  possessing  any  horse  of  the  value  of  more  than  51,^ 
The  chief  branches  of  Irish  commerce  and  industry  had,  as 
we  shall  see,  been  deliberately  crushed  by  law  in  the  interests 
of  English  manufacturers ;  but  the  Catholics  were  not  specially 
disabled  from  participating  in  them,  and  the  legislator  con- 

'  7  William  III.  c.  5  ;    2  Anne,  c.  than  5?.     A  law  similar  to  the  Irish 

6 ;  2  George  I.  c.  9  ;  9  George  II.  c.  one  was  enacted  against  the  English 

6.      See  too    Burke's  Tracts   on   the  Catholics.     It   is  frequently  alluded 

Popery  Laws.     The  law  about  horses  to   in  the   correspondence   of    Pope, 

was  found  so  detrimental  to  the  breed  See,  too,  the   Prologue  to   Dryden"s 

that  it  was  afterwards  enacted  in  Ire-  Don  Sebastian. 

land,  (8  Anne,  c.  3)  that  Papists  might  „        ^   -r.    -^  ^  ^   ,_     -j^ 

,    .     -,  TiiT  t  Horses  by  Papists  are  not  to  be  ridden, 

possess    stud  mares  and  stallions,  and  But  sure  the  muse's  horse  was  ne'er  forbidden, 

the  breed  or  produce  thereof  under  the  For  in  no  rate-book  it  -n-as  ever  found 

age  of  five  years '   of   a  greater  value  That  Pegasus  was  valued  at  five  pound. 


CH.  II.  LAWS  RELATING  TO  LAND.  311 

tented  himself  with  assigning  strict  limits  to  their  success  by 
providing  that,  except  in  the  linen  trade,  no  Catholic  could  have 
more  than  two  apprentices.' 

In  the  case  of  landed  property,  however,  the  laws  were 
more  severe,  for  it  was  the  third  great  object  of  the  penal 
code  to  dissociate  the  Catholics  as  much  as  possible  from 
the  soil.  Of  this  policy  it  may  be  truly  said,  that  unless  it 
was  inspired  by  unmixed  malevolence,  and  intended  to  make 
the  nation  permanently  incapable  of  self-government,  it  was 
one  of  the  most  infatuated  that  could  be  conceived.  Land 
being  an  irremovable  property,  subject  to  Grovernment  con- 
trol, has  always  proved  the  best  pledge  of  the  loyalty  of  its 
possessor,  and  its  acquisition  never  fails  to  diffuse  through 
a  disaffected  class  conservative  and  orderly  habits.  One  of 
the  first  objects  of  every  wise  legislator,  and,  indeed,  of  every 
good  man,  should  be  to  soften  the  division  of  classes ;  and  no 
social  condition  can  be  more  clearly  dangerous  or  diseased 
than  that  in  which  these  divisions  coincide  with,  and  are  inten- 
sified by  differences  of  creed.  To  make  the  landlord  class 
almost  exclusively  Protestant,  while  the  tenant  class  were 
almost  exclusively  Catholic,  was  to  plant  in  Ireland  the  seeds 
of  the  most  permanent  and  menacing  divisions.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  class  of  Catholic  landlords  connected  with  one  portion 
of  the  people  by  property  and  with  another  portion  by  religion 
could  not  fail  to  soften  at  once  the  animosities  of  class  and  of 
creed.  They  would  have  become  the  natural  political  leaders 
of  their  co-religionists,  and  it  is  to  the  absence  of  such  a  class 
that  both  the  revolutionary  and  sacerdotal  extravagances  of 
Irish  Catholic  politics  are  mainly  to  be  attributed. 

The  great  confiscations  under  James  I.,  Cromwell,  and 
William  had  done  much  to  make  the  projDrietary  of  Ireland 
exclusively  Protestants.  The  penal  laws  continued  the  work. 
No  Catholic  was  suffered  to  buy  land,  or  inherit  or  receive  it  as 
a  gift  from  Protestants,  or  to  hold  life  annuities,  or  leases  for 
more  than  thirtv-one  years,  or  any  lease  on  such  terms  that  the 

'  8  Anne,  c.  3. 


312  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  CH.  n. 

profits  of  the  lauds  exceeded  one-tliird  of  the  rent.  If  a 
Catholic  leaseholder,  by  his  skill  or  industry,  so  increased  his 
profits  that  they  exceeded  this  proportion,  and  did  not  imme- 
diately make  a  corresponding  increase  in  his  rent,  his  farm 
passed  to  the  first  Protestant  who  made  the  discovery.  If  a 
Catholic  secretly  pm-chased  either  his  own  forfeited  estate,  or 
any  other  land  in  the  possession  of  a  Protestant,  the  first  Pro- 
testant who  informed  against  him  became  the  proprietor.  The 
whole  country  was  soon  filled  with  spies,  endeavouring  to  appro- 
priate the  property  of  Catholics  ;  and  Popish  discoveries  became  a 
main  business  of  the  law  courts.  Tlie  few  Catholic  landlords  who 
remained  after  the  confiscations,  were  deprived  of  the  liberty  of 
testament,  which  was  possessed  by  all  other  subjects  of  the 
Crown.  Their  estates,  upon  their  death,  were  divided  equally 
among  their  sons,  unless  the  eldest  became  a  Protestant ;  in 
which  case  the  whole  was  settled  upon  him.*  In  this  manner 
Catholic  landlords  were  g]-adually  but  surely  impoverished. 
Their  land  passed  almost  universally  into  the  hands  of  Pro- 
testants, and  the  few  who  succeeded  in  retaining  large  estates 
did  so  only  by  compliances  which  destroyed  the  wholesome  moral 
influence  that  would  naturally  have  attached  to  their  position. 
The  penal  code,  as  it  was  actually  carried  out,  was  inspired 
much  less  by  fanaticism  than  by  rapacity,  and  was  directed  less 
against  the  Catholic  religion  than  against  the  property  and 
industry  of  its  professors.  It  was  intended  to  make  them  poor 
and  to  keep  them  poor,  to  crush  in  them  every  germ  of  enter- 
prise, to  degrade  them  into  a  servile  caste  who  could  never 
hope  to  rise  to  the  level  of  their  oppressors.  The  division  of 
classes  was  made  as  deep  as  possible,  and  every  precaution  was 
taken  to  perpetuate  and  to  embitter  it.  Any  Protestant  who 
married  a  Catholic,  or  who  suffered  his  children  to  be  educated 
as  Catholics,  was  exposed  to  all  the  disabilities  of  the  code. 
Any  Protestant  woman  who  was  a  landowner,  if  she  married  a 
Catholic,  was  at  once  deprived  of  her  inheritance,  which  passed 
to  the  nearest  Protestant  heir.  A  later  law  provided  that 
'  2  Anne,  c.  6 ;    8  Anne,  c.  3. 


CH.  II.  LAWS  INTERFEEING  WITH  DOMESTIC   LIFE.  313 

every  marriage  celebrated  by  a  Catholic  priest  between  a  Catho- 
lic and  a  Protestant  should  be  null,  and  that  the  priest  who 
oflSciated  should  be  hung.' 

The  creation  by  law  of  a  gigantic  system  of  bribery  in- 
tended to  induce  tlie  Catholics  to  abandon  or  disguise  their 
creed,  and  of  an  army  of  spies  and  informers  intended  to  prey 
upon  their  property,  had  naturally  a  profoundly  demoralising 
influence,  but  hardly  so  much  so  as  the  enactments  which  were 
designed  to  sow  discord  and  insubordination  in  their  homes. 
These  measures,  which  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  fourth  branch 
of  the  penal  code,  appear  to  have  rankled  more  than  any  others 
in  the  minds  of  the  Catholics,  and  they  produced  the  bitterest 
and  most  pathetic  complaints.  The  law  I  liave  cited,  by  which 
the  eldest  son  of  a  Catholic,  upon  apostatising,  became  the  heir- 
a:t-law  to  the  whole  estate  of  his  father,  reduced  his  father  to 
the  position  of  a  mere  life  tenant,  and  prevented  him  from 
selling,  mortgaging,  or  otherwise  disposing  of  it,  is  a  typical 
measure  of  this  class.  In  like  manner  a  wife  who  apostatised 
was  immediately  freed  from  her  husband's  control,  and  the 
Chancellor  was  empowered'  to  assign  to  her  a  certain  proportion 
of  her  husband's  property.  If  any  child,  however  young,  pro- 
fessed to  be  a  Protestant,  it  was  at  once  taken  from  its  father's 
care.  The  Chancellor,  or  the  child  itself,  if  an  adult,  might 
compel  the  father  to  produce  the  title-deeds  of  his  estate,  and 
declare  on  oath  the  value  of  his  property  ;  and  such  a  propor- 
tion as  the  Chancellor  determined  was  given  to  the  child.' 
Children  were  thus  set  against  their  parents,  and  wives  against 
their  husbands,  and  jealousies,  suspicions,  and  heart-burnings 
were  introduced  into  the  Catholic  home.  The  undutiful  wife, 
the  rebellious  and  unnatural  son,  had  only  to  add  to  their  other 
crimes  the  guilt  of  a  feigned  conversion,  in  order  to  secure  both 
impunity  and  reward,  and  to  deprive  those  whom  they  had 
injured  of  the  management  and  disposal  of  their  property. 
The  influence  of  the  code  appeared,  indeed,  omnipresent.     It 

'  9  William  III.  c.  3  ;    7  George      19  George  II.  c.  13  ;  23  George  H.  c.  10. 
n.  c.  5  and  6  ;    13  George  U.  c.  6.  '2  Anne,  c.  6 ;  8  Anne,  c.  3. 


314  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

blasted  the  prospects  of  the  Catholic  in  all  the  struggles  of 
active  life.  It  cast  its  shadow  over  the  inmost  recesses  of  his 
home.  It  darkened  the  very  last  hour  of  his  existence.  No 
Catholic,  as  I  have  said,  could  be  guardian  to  a  child;  so 
the  dying  parent  knew  that  his  children  must  pass  under  the 
tutelage  of  Protestants, 

This  last  provision,  indeed,  from  its  influence  on  property  and 
especially  on  domestic  happiness,  was  of  pre-eminent  importance. 
A  Catholic  landlord  who  in  those  evil  days  clung  to  his  religion 
was  probably  actuated  by  a  deep  and  fervent  conviction.  But 
if  he  happened  to  be  seized  with  a  mortal  illness  while  his 
children  were  minors,  he  had  the  inexpressible  misery  of  know- 
ing that  he  could  not  leave  them  to  the  care  of  his  wife,  or  of 
any  Catholic  friend,  but  that  the  Chancellor  was  bound  to  pro- 
vide them  with  a  Protestant  guardian,  whose  first  duty  was  to 
bring  them  up  in  the  Protestant  creed.^  It  would  be  difficult 
to  conceive  an  enactment  calculated  to  inflict  a  keener  pang, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  great  efforts  were  made  to  evade  it. 
It  sometimes  happened  that  a  Protestant  friend  of  the  dying 
man  consented  to  accept  the  legal  obligation  of  guardian  on  the 
secret  understanding  that  he  would  leave  the  actual  education 
of  the  children  in  the  hands  of  any  Catholic  the  family  might 
select.     The  family  would  then  petition  that  this   Protestant 

'  This  provision    seems  so  atro-  children,    being    a    Protestant,   and 

ciously  cruel  that  it  may  be  well  to  conforming  himself  to  the  Church  of 

give  the   exact  words    of    the   law.  Ireland    as    by  law    established,  to 

'  That  care   may  be    taken  for  the  whom  the  estate  cannot  descend,  in 

education  of   children  in  the   com-  case  there  shall  be  any  such  Protestant 

munion  of  the  Church  of  Ireland  as  relation  fit  to  have  the  education  of 

by  law  established ;  be  it  enacted  by  such  child ;  otherwise  to  some  other 

the  authority  aforesaid,  that  no  per-  Protestant    Conforming    himself    as 

son  of  the  Popish  religion  shall  or  aforesaid,  who  is  hereby  required  to 

may  be  guardian  unto,  or  have  the  iise  his  utmost  care  to  educate  and 

tuition  or   custody  of    any  orphan,  bring  up  such  child  or  minor  in  the 

child,  or  children,  under  the  age  of  Protestant  religion  until  the  age  of 

twenty-one  years  ;  but  that  the  same,  twenty-one  years.'— 2  Anne,  c.  6,  sec. 

where  the  person  having  or  entitled  4.   Any  Papist  who  took  upon  himself 

to  the  guardianship  of  such  orphan,  the  guardianship  of  a  child  was  by 

child,  or  children,  is  or  shall  be  a  the  same  Act  made  liable  to  a  fine  of 

Papist,  shall  be  disposed  of  by  the  500^.,  to   be   given  to  the  Bluecoat 

High  Court  of  Chancery  to  some  near  Hospital  in  Dublin, 
relation  of    such    orphan,   child,   or 


CH.  II.  LAWS  EELATING  TO  WARDSHIP.  315 

might  be  appointed  guardian,  and  it  was  probable  that  their 
request  ^YOuld  be  acceded  to.  A  case  of  this  kind  came  under 
the  cognisance  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  in  1707.  A 
Catholic  gentleman,  named  Sir  John  Cotter,  died,  leaving  an 
estate,  in  the  county  of  Cork,  and  three  minor  children,  the 
eldest  being  about  fifteen  years  old.  The  very  day  of  liis 
funeral  the  eldest  son  was  sent  privately  to  London,  with  a 
Catholic  gentleman  named  Galway,  to  be  educated  in  his  own 
faith.  The  Protestants  at  once  called  the  attention  of  the 
Chancellor  to  the  evasion,  and  he  appointed  a  certain  Alderman 
Chartres  guardian  to  the  minors,  and  compelled  Galway  to 
surrender  the  infant.  Great  efforts  were  then  made  to  change 
the  guardian,  and  at  last  a  petition,  alleging,  it  is  said,  falsely, 
that  the  minors  were  destitute  of  a  guardian,  and  begging 
that  a  Protestant  gentleman  named  Netterville  might  be  ap- 
pointed, was  successful.  Xetterville  became  guardian,  and  he 
left  the  actual  care  of  the  children  in  the  hands  of  Galway. 
The  House,  however,  determined  to  prevent,  if  possible,  the  repe- 
tition of  such  an  evasion.  It  resolved  '  that  any  Protestant 
guardian  that  permits  a  Papist  to  educate  or  dispose  of  his 
ward  does  thereby  betray  the  trust  reposed  in  him,  evade  the 
law,  and  propagate  Popery  ; '  '  that  any  Papist  who  shall  take 
upon  him  to  manage  and  dispose  of  the  substance  and  person  of 
any  infant  committed  to  a  Protestant  guardian  is  guilty  of  a 
notorious  breach  of  the  law  ; '  and  '  that  it  is  the  indispensable 
duty  of  Protestant  guardians  to  take  the  persons  of  their  wards 
out  of  the  custody  of  their  Papist  relations.'  Netterville  was 
summoned  before  the  House,  censured,  and  bound  over  to  edu- 
cate the  minors  as  Protestants,  and  Galway  was  ordered  into 
custody.'  It  is  probable  that  no  small  amount  of  property 
passed  in  this  manner  into  Protestant  hands.'^ 

'  Insh  Commons  Jaurnals,  iii.  Hi-  tourists,  who  visited  that  part  of  the 

4-17,  4.")4-455.  countryinthemiddleoftheeigbteentb 

*  We    have  an  example  of    this  century,  describe  the  result.      '  The 

in   the   old  family  of   Cavanagh  of  minor  of  a  Roman  Catholic,  left  so  by 

Borris  on  the  Barrow.     The  Catholic  the  death  of  his  father,  is  accounted 

owner  of  the  property  died  when  his  the  heir  of  the  Crown,  and  the  Lord 

son  was  a  minor,  and  two  English  Chancellor  for  the  time  being,  is  ap- 


316  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  ii.        * 

As  regards  the  celebration  of  the  Catholic  worship,  the  laws,  if 
equally  proliibitory,  were  at  least  less  severely  enforced.  A 
law  of  Elizabeth,  prohibiting  the  Catholic  worship,  and  another 
law  compelling  all  persons  to  attend  the  Anglican  service,  were 
unrepealed,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  Catholic  chapels  in 
Ireland  were  closed  during  the  Scotch  rebellion  of  1715.  In 
general,  however,  the  hopeless  task  of  preventing  some  three- 
fourths  of  the  nation  from  celebrating  the  rites  which  they  believed 
essential  to  their  eternal  salvation  was  not  attempted.  The 
conditions  of  the  Catholic  worship  were  determined  by  the  law 
of  1703,  which  compelled  every  Catholic  priest,  under  the 
penalties  of  imprisonment  and  banishment,  and  of  death  if  he 
returned,  to  register  his  name  and  parish,  and  other  particu- 
lars essential  to  his  identification,^  and  these  registered  priests 
might  celebrate  mass  without  molestation.  1,080  availed  them- 
selves of  the  privilege.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  they 
derived  from  the  Government  no  pay,  no  favour  of  any  descrip- 
tion, except  the  barest  toleration,  but  yet  the  Government 
undertook  to  regulate  in  the  severest  manner  the  conditions  of 
their  ministry.  The  parish  priest  alone  could  celebrate  mass, 
and  that  only  in  his  own  parish.  He  was  not  permitted  to  keep 
a  curate.  No  chapel  might  have  bells  or  steeple,  and  no  cross 
might  be  publicly  erected.  Pilgrimages  to  the  holy  wells  were 
forbidden,  and  it  is  a  characteristic  trait  that  the  penalty  in 
default  of  the  payment  of  a  fine  was  the  degrading  one  of  whip- 
ping. If  any  Catholic  induced  a  Protestant  to  join  his  faith, 
he  was  liable  to  the  penalties  of  prcemunire.  If  any  priest 
became  a  Protestant  he  became  entitled  to  an  annuity,  which 
was  at  first  20^.  but  was  afterwards  raised  to  30^.,  to  be  levied  on 
the  district  where  he  resided.^ 

But  soon  another,  and  a  far  more  serious  measure  was  taken. 
In  the  reign  of  Anne  large  classes,  both  in  England  and  in 
Ireland,  who  were  perfectly  innocent  of  any  treasonable  de- 
pointed  his  criiardian,  in  order  to  bring  throu<]h  Ireland  by  Two  English 
him  up  as  a  Protestant;  and  this  young  Gentlemen  (1748),  p.  225. 
gentleman  is    now    in   Westminster  '  2  Anne,  c.  7  ;    4  Anne,  c.  2. 

school    for  that    purpose.' — A    Tour  ^  2  Anne,  c.  6  and  7  ;    8  Anne,  c.  3. 


I 


cir.  II.  IMPOSITION   OF  THE  ABJURATION   OATH.  317 

signs  against  the  Government,  and  perfectly  prepared  to   take 
the  oath  of  allegiance  which  bound  them  to  obey  the  existing 
ruler,  and  to  abstain  from  all  conspiracies  against  him,  consi- 
dered it  distinctly  sinful  to  take  the  oath  of  abjuration,  wliich 
asserted  that  the  son  of  James  II.  had  '  no  right  or  title  what- 
soever '  -to  the  Crown,    and  pledged  the    swearer  to  perpetual 
loyalty  to  the  Protestant  line.     The  distinction   between    the 
King  de  jure  and  the  King  de  facto  was  here  of  vital  importance. 
It  was  scarcely  conceivable  that  any  sincere  and  zealous  Catho- 
lic could  look  upon  the  Revolution  as  a  righteous  movement,  or 
could  believe  that  James  had  justly  forfeited  his  crown.    The  doc- 
trine of  passive  obedience  was  not,  it  is  true,  taught  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  except  among  the  Gallican  divines,  as  emphatically  as 
among  Anglicans,  but  the  belief  in  a  Divine  hereditary  right  of 
kings  was  universal,  and  no  Catholic  could  seriously  suppose  that 
as  a  matter  of  right,  James  had  forfeited  his  authority.  The  Catho- 
lics well  knew  that  he  had  lost  his  crown  mainly  on  account  of  his 
Catholicism,  that  the  last  great  unconstitutional  act  with  which 
he  was  reproached  was  an  attempt  to  suspend  the  penal  Liws 
against  themselves,  that  the  object  of  the  Act  of  Settlement  was 
to  secure  that  no  Catholic  should  again  sit  upon  the  throne.     At 
the  same  time  they  were  perfectly  ready  to  recognise  the  result 
of  the   war,   to  take   the   oath   of  allegiance   to   the  existing 
Government',  and  to  abstain  from  any   conspiracy   against   it. 
When  the  priests  registered  themselves  in  1 704  no  oath  was 
required  except  the  oath  of  allegiance  ;  and  it  may  be  added, 
— though,  indeed,  after  the  recent  legislation  this  consideration 
could  have  but  little  weight, — that  it  was  expressly  stipulated  in 
the  Treaty  of  Limerick  that  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  '  no  other ' 
should  be  imposed  upon  the  Irish  Catholics.     Yet  in  the  face  of 
these  circumstances,  and  at  a  time  when  not  a  single  act  of  treason 
or  turbulence  was  proved  against  the  Catholic  priests,  the  Irish 
Parliament  enacted  in  1709  that  by  the  March  of  the  following 
year  all  the  registered  priests  must  take  the  oath  of  abjuration, 
under  the  penalty  of  banishment  for  life,  and  if  they  returned, 


31 8  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

of  death.'  At  the  same  time  any  two  magistrates  were  autho- 
rised to  summon  before  them  any  Irish  layman,  to  tender  to 
him  the  same  oath  and  to  imprison  him  if  he  refused  to  take  it. 
If  the  oath  was  tendered  three  times  and  he  still  refused  to  take 
it,  he  was  guilty  of  prcemunire  and  liable  to  perpetual  imprison- 
ment and  the  confiscation  of  all  his  property. ^  The  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England,  as  we  have  seen,  accepted  this  oath ;  but,  at 
the  same  time,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  any  man  could  honestly 
take  it  who  believed  that  doctrine  of  Divine  hereditary  right 
which  was  equally  taught  by  the  Church  of  Eome  and  by  the 
Church  of  England.  The  Episcopalians  in  Scotland  resolutely 
refused  it,  and  from  the  very  first  the  Eoman  Catholic  authorities 
declared  it  to  be  sinful,  and  imposed  penances  on  those  who 
yielded.  A  very  powerful  memorial  on  the  subject,  drawn  up  in 
1724  by  Dr.  Nary,  who  was  probably  the  ablest  Catholic  priest 
then  living  in  Ireland,  clearly  states  their  reasons.^  The  writer 
declares  his  full  approval  of  the  oath  of  allegiance.  That  oath 
binds  all  who  take  it  to  have  no  hand  in  any  plot  or  conspiracy 
against  the  existing  Grovernment,  and  to  do  all  in  their  power  to 
suppress  sedition,  and  every  Catholic  may  with  a  perfect  good 
conscience  unreservedly  take  it.  The  oath  of  abjuration,  on 
the  contrary,  contains  three  clauses  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
writer,  must  necessarily  offend  a  Catholic  conscience.  It  asserts 
that  the  late  Priuce  of  Wales,  who  was  now  the  Pretender,  had 
no  right  or  title  whatever  to  the  Crown  of  England,  and  thus 
passes  a  judgment  on  the  Eevolution  which  cannot  be  accepted 
by  anyone  who  believes  in  the  Divine  right  of  hereditary  mon- 

'  8  Anne,  c.  3.  of  which  would  be  that  the  least 
^  Ibid.  conscientious  priests  would  be  regis- 
'  This  very  able  paper,  called  '  The  tered,  and  the  most  conscientious 
case  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,'  is  ones  excluded  '  (Jan.  29,  1755).  3Iis- 
printed  in  Hugh  Eeilly's  Genuine  cell-aneous  Works,  iv.  253.  Archbishop 
Hist,  of  Ireland.  In  one  of  Chester-  Synge  stated  in  1722  that  a  large  pro- 
field's  letters  to  the  Bishop  of  Water-  portion  of  the  Catholics  were  quite 
ford,  he  says :  *  I  would  only  require  willing  to  take  the  oath  if  only  the 
the  priests  to  take  the  oath  of  alle-  clause  relating  to  the  Divine  right  of 
glance  simply,  and  not  the  subsequent  the  Pretender  were  omitted.  See  his 
oaths,  tvhich  in  my  oj)imon  no  real  Letters  to  ArcJtbisJioj)  Wake,  British 
Pajnst   can  take;    the    consequence  Museii7nAdd.MSS.,Gll7,i>][).li7-153. 


cu.  II.  POPISH  DIGNITAEIES   AND  FRIAKS.  319 

archy,  and  who  denies  that  the  measures  of  James  in  favour  of 
Catholicism  invalidated  his  title  to  the  throne.  It  restricts  the 
allegiance  of  the  swearer  to  the  Protestant  line,  and  therefore 
implies  that  if  the  existmg  sovereign  were  converted  to  Catholi- 
cism, the  Catholic,  on  that  ground  alone,  would  be  bound  to 
withdraw  his  allegiance  from  him.  It  contains  the  assertion 
that  the  oath  was  taken  '  heartily,  freely,  and  willingly,'  which 
in  the  case  of  a  sincere  Roman  Catholic  would  certainly  be 
untrue. 

It  is  said  that  not  more  than  thirty-three  of  the  registered 
priests  actually  took  this  oath,'^  and  its  chief  result  was  that  the 
whole  system  of  registration  fell  rapidly  into  disuse. 

Such  was  the  legislation  in  the  case  of  registered  priests  who 
were  supposed  to  enjoy  the  benefit  of  toleration.  It  is,  however, 
obviously  absurd  to  speak  of  the  Catholic  religion  as  tolerated  in  a 
country  where  its  bishops  were  proscribed.  In  Ireland,  all  Catholic 
archbishops,  bishops,  deans,  and  vicars-general  were  ordered  by  a 
certain  day  to  leave  the  country.  If  after  that  date  they  were 
found  in  it  they  were  to  be  first  imprisoned  and  then  banished, 
and  if  they  returned  they  were  pronounced  guilty  of  high  treason 
and  were  liable  to  be  hung,  disembowelled,  and  quartered.  Nor 
were  these  idle  words.  The  law  of  1709  offered  a  reward  of 
50^.  to  anyone  who  secured  the  conviction  of  any  Catholic  arch- 
bishop, bishop,  dean,  or  vicar-general.  In  their  own  dioceses,  in 
the  midst  of  a  purely  Catholic  country,  in  the  performance  of 
religious  duties  which  were  absolutely  essential  to  the  mainten- 
ance of  their  religion,  the  Catholic  bishops  were  compelled  to 
live  in  obscure  hovels  and  under  feigned  names,  moving  continu- 
ally from  place  to  place,  meeting  their  flocks  under  the  shadow 
of  the  night,  not  unfrequently  taking  refuge  from  their  pursuers 
in  caverns  or  among  the  mountains.  The  position  of  all  friars 
and  unregistered  priests  was  very  similar.  It  was  evident  that 
if  any  strong  religious  feeling  was  to  be  maintained  there  must 
be  many  of  them  in  Ireland.     A  Government  which  avowedly 

'  Nary.     According  to  another  account,  thirty-seven.     O'Connor's  Hi^t.  of 
tlie  Irish  CatlwUcs,  p,  1 79, 


320  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  ti. 

made  the  repression  of  the  Catholic  religion  one  of  its  main  ends 
would  never  authorise  a  sufficient  number  of  priests  to  maintain 
any  high  standard  of  devotion.  The  priests  were  looked  upon 
as  necessary  evils,  to  be  reduced  to  the  lowest  possible  numbers. 
It  was  not  certain  that  when  the  existing  generation  of  regis- 
tered priests  died  out  the  Grovernment  would  suffer  them  to  be 
replaced,  and  no  licences  were  to  be  granted  to  those  who  refused 
the  abjuration  oath  which  the  Catholic  Church  pronounced  to 
be  unlawful.  Very  naturally,  therefore,  numerous  unregistered 
priests  and  friars  laboured  among  the  people.  Like  the  bishop 
they  were  liable  to  banishment  if  they  were  discovered,  and  to 
death  if  they  returned.  It  was  idle  for  the  prisoner  to  allege 
that  no  political  action  of  any  kind  was  proved  against  him, 
that  he  was  employed  solely  in  carrying  spiritual  consolations  to 
a  population  who  were  reduced  to  a  condition  of  the  extremest 
spiritual  as  well  as  temporal  destitution.  Strenuous  measures 
were  taken  to  enforce  the  law.  It  was  enacted  that  every  mayor 
or  justice  of  the  peace  who  neglected  to  execute  its  provisions 
should  be  liable  to  a  fine  of  lOOL,  half  of  which  was  to  go  to 
the  informer,  and  should  also  on  conviction  be  disabled  from 
serving  as  justice  of  the  peace  during  the  remainder  of  his  life. 
A  reward  of  20l.,  offered  for  the  detection  of  each  friar  or  un- 
registered priest,  called  a  regular  race  of  priest-hunters  into 
existence.  To  facilitate  their  task  the  law  enabled  any  two  justices 
of  the  peace  at  any  time  to  compel  any  Catholic  of  eighteen  or 
upwards  to  declare  when  and  where  he  last  heard  mass,  who 
officiated,  and  who  was  present,  and  if  he  refused  to  give 
evidence  he  might  be  imprisoned  for  twelve  months,  or  until  he 
paid  a  fine  of  20^.  Anyone  who  harboured  ecclesiastics  from 
beyond  the  sea  was  liable  to  fines  which  amounted,  for  the  third 
offence,  to  the  confiscation  of  all  his  goods.*     Tlie  Irish  House 

'  9  William  III.  c.  1 ;  2    Anne,  c.  j^olitique,  sociale,  et  religieuae.     Very 

3  ;   4  Anne,  c.  2  ;    8  Anne,  c.  3.     For  few  writers  have  ever  studied  Irish 

the  whole  subject  of  the  penal  laws,  I  history  so  accurately  or  so  minutely 

would  refer  to  the  most  admirable  as  M.  de  Beaumont,  and  he  brought 

*  Introduction  historique  '  to  the  work  to  it  the  impartiality  of  a  foreigner, 

of  Gustave  de  Beaumont,  L'Irlande  and  the  political  insight  and  skill 


CH.  H.  THE  CASTRATION  CLAUSE.  321 

of  Commons  m'ged  the  magistrates  on,  to  greater  activity  in 
enforcing  the  law,  and  it  resolved  '  that  the  saying  or  liear- 
ing  of  mass  by  persons  who  had  not  taken  the  oath  of  ab- 
juration tended  to  advance  the  interests  of  the  Pretender,'  and 
again,  'that  the  prosecuting  and  informing  against  Papists 
was  an  honourable  service  to  the  Government.' '  But  perhaps 
the  most  curious  illustration  of  the  ferocious  spirit  of  the  time 
was  furnished  by  the  Irish  Privy  Council  in  1719.  In  that 
year  an  elaborate  Bill  against  Papists  was  carried,  apparently 
without  opposition,  througli  the  Irisli  House  of  Commons,  and 
among  its  clauses  was  one  sentencing  all  unregistered  priests 
who  were  found  in  Ireland  to  be  branded  witli  a  red-hot  iron 
upon  the  cheek.  The  Irish  Privy  Council,  however,  actually 
changed  the  penalty  of  branding  into  that  of  castration,^  and 
sent  the  Bill  with  this  atrocious  recommendation  to  England  for 
ratification.  The  English  ministers  unanimously  restored  the 
penalty  of  branding.  By  the  constitution  of  Ireland  a  Bill 
which  had  been  returned  from  England  might  be  finally 
rejected  but  could  not  be  amended  by  the  Irish  Parliament ;  and 
the  Irish  House  of  Lords,  objecting  to  a  retrospective  clause  which 
invalidated  certain   leases  which  Papists  had  been  suffered   to 

which   might  be  expected  from  the  that   of   castration,  which   they   are 

intimate    friend     and    the    faithful  persuaded  will  be  the  most  effectual 

disciple  of  De  Tocqueville.  method  that  can  be  found  out,  to  clear 

'  Parnell  On  the  Penal  Lairs,  ^.  60.  this  nation  of  those  disturbers  of  the 

See,  too,  Commons'  Journal,  iv.  25.  peace  and  quiet  of  the  kingdom,  and 

*  They  write,  '  The  common  Irish  would  have  been  very  well  pleased  to 
will  never  become  Protestants  or  well  have  found  out  any  other  punishment 
affected  to  the  Crown  while  they  are  which  might  in  their  opinion  have 
supplied  with  priests,  friars,  &;c.,  who  remedied  the  evil.  If  your  Excellencies 
are  the  foment ers  of  all  rebellions  and  shall  not  be  of  the  same  sentiments, 
disturbances  here.  So  that  some  more  they  submit  to  your  consideration 
effectual  remedy  to  prevent  priests  whether  the  punishment  of  castration 
and  friars  coming  into  this  kingdom  maj'  not  be  altered  to  th.~it  proposed 
is  perfectly  necessary.  The  Commons  by  the  Commons,  or  to  some  other 
proposed  the  marking  of  every  person  effectual  one  which  may  occur  to 
who  should  be  convicted  of  being  an  your  Lordships.  Signed  —  Bolton, 
imregistered  priest,  friar,  kc,  and  of  Middleton,  Jo.  Meath,  John  Clog- 
remaining  in  this  kingdom  after  May  her,  Santiy,  St.  George  Newton, 
1,  1720,  with  a  large  P  to  be  made  Oliver  St.  George,  E.  Webster,  K. 
with  a  red-hot  iron  on  his  cheek.  Tighe.  Lords-Lieutenant  and  Lwds- 
The  Council  generally  disliked  that  Justices'  Letters,  Dublin  State  Paper 
punishment,  and  have  altered  it  to  OlHce  (Aug.  17,  1719). 

VOL.  I.  22 


322  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

make,  threw  out  the  Bill.^  It  is,  however,  a  memorable  fact  in 
the  moral  history  of  Europe  that  as  late  as  1719  this  penalty 
was  seriously  proposed  by  the  responsible  Government  of  Ireland. 
It  may  be  added  that  a  law  imposing  it  upon  Jesuits  was  actu- 
ally in  force  in  Sweden  in  the  beginning  of  the  century,  and 
that  a  paper  was  circulated  in  1700  advocating  the  adoption  of 
a  similar  atrocity  in  England.^ 

One  more  illustration  may  be  given  of  the  ferocity  of  the 
persecuting  spirit  which  at  this  time  prevailed  in  Ireland,  both 
in  the  native  Legislature  and  in  the  English  Grovernment.  In 
1723,  when  the  alarm  caused  by  Atterbm-y's  plot  was  at  its 
height,  the  Irish  House  of  Commons,  at  the  express  invitation 
of  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  proceeded  to  pass  a  new  Bill  against 
unregistered  priests.  It  was  entitled  '  A  BiU  for  Explaining 
and  Amending  the  Acts  to  Prevent  the  Growth  of  Popery  and 
for  Strengthening  the  Protestant  Interest  in  Ireland ;'  and  the 
heads  of  the  Bill,  after  passing  through  both  houses,  were  sent 
over  to  England  with  the  warm  recommendation  of  the  Irish 
Privy  Council.  The  bill  as  it  issued  from  the  Commons  is  still 
preserved,  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  deserves  to 
rank  with  the  most  infamous  edicts  in  the  whole  history  of 
persecution.  One  of  its  clauses  provided  that  all  unregistered 
priests  should  depart  out  of  Ireland  before  March  25, 1724,  and 
that  all  found  after  that  date  should  be  deemed  guilty  of  high 
treason,  except  they  have  in  the  meantime  taken  the  oath  of 

'  A  very  erroneous  and  exaggerated  clerk)  from   Dublin  Castle,  is  dated 

version  of  this  story,  based,  I  believe,  August  26,  1719.  The  reply  by  Craggs 

on  an  anonymous  £ssai  sur  VHutoire  is  dated  September  22,  1719. 
de  I'Irlands  (see  O'Connor's  Hist,  of  -  Harleian  Miscellany,  iv.  415-423, 

the  Irish  Catholics,  p.  190),  published  The  writer  says :  '  Since  the  same  was 

about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  enacted    into   a  law    and  practised 

has  been  repeated  by  Curry,  Plowden,  upon  a  few   of   them,  that  kingdom 

and     other     writers.      Mr.     Froude  [Sweden]  hath  never  been  infested 

(^En/jlish  in  Ireland,  i.  pp.  546-557)  with   Pojiish   clergy  or  plots.'     In  a 

has  correctly  stated  the  facts,  and  has  '  Collection  of  Irish  Speeches,  Trials, 

devoted  some  characteristic  pages  to  &c.,  from  1711  to  1733,'  in  the  British 

their  apology.     I  have  examined  the  Museum,    there     is    an     anonymous 

original  letters  on  the  subject  in  the  jDaper,  printed  at   Dublin    in    1725, 

Record  Office.     One  of  these,  written  recommending     the     castration     of 

by  Webster  (a  leading  Government  ordinary  criminals. 


CH.  11.  ATEOCIOUS  LEGISLATION  AGAINST  PEIESTS.  323 

abjuration.  In  this  manner  it  was  proposed  to  make  the  whole 
priesthood  in  a  purely  Catholic  country  liable  to  the  most  hor- 
rible form  of  death  known  to  British  law,  unless  they  took  an 
oath  which  their  Church  authoritatively  pronounced  to  be  sin- 
ful. By  another  clause  it  was  provided  that  all  bishops,  deans, 
monks,  and  vicars-general  found  in  the  country  after  the  same 
date  should  be  liable  to  the  same  horrible  fate,  and  in  their  cases 
the  abjuration  oath  was  not  admitted  as  an  alternative.  Bv 
a  third  clause  it  was  ordered  that  any  person  who  was  found  guilty 
of  afifording  shelter  or  protection  to  a  Popish  dignitary  should 
sufi'er  death  as  a  felon  without  benefit  of  clergy.  By  a  fourth 
clause  a  similar  penalty  was  decreed  against  any  Popish  school- 
master or  Poj^ish  tutor  in  a  private  house,  and,  in  order  that  the 
law  should  be  fully  enforced,  large  rewards  were  promised  to  dis- 
coverers of  priests,  bishops,  or  harbourers  who  gave  evidence 
leadiflg  to  con\dction,  and  these  rewards  were  doubled  if  thev 
themselves  prosecuted  the  offender  to  conviction.  Happily,  this 
atrocious  measure  never  came  into  effect.  The  alarm  caused  in 
England  by  the  designs  of  the  Pretender  passed  away.  The 
excitement  caused  by  Wood's  halfpence  was  at  its  height,  and 
it  is  probable  that  the  humane  feelings  of  Walpole  were  revolted 
by  a  law  that  was  worthy  of  Alva  or  Torquemada.  The  Bill  was 
not  returned  from  England,  and  it  was  never  revived.' 

■  '  Heads  of  a  Bill  for  Explaining  recommending  it.  Mr.  Froude,  warmly 
and  Amending  the  Acts  to  Prevent  the  supports  this  attempted  legislation, 
Gro-n-th  of  Popery,'  &:c.  There  are  but  he  has  suppressed  all  mention  of 
several  other  provisions  in  these  the  penalties  contained  in  the  bill, 
heads — among  others,  one  for  making  and  even  uses  language  which  would 
marriages  between  Catholics  and  convey  to  any  ordinary  reader  the 
Protestants  celebrated  by  priests  impression  that  no  specific  penalties 
invalid.  The  heads  of  the  Bill  are  in  were  determined.  His  assertion  that 
-the  Irish  Record  Office  in  Dublin.  the  bill  after  passing  the  Commons 
They  have,  as  far  as  I  know,  never  was  unaltered  by  the  Council  is 
been  printed,  though  they  well  doubtful.  The  Duke  of  Grafton  writes, 
deserve  to  be.  In  the  Irish  State  '  The  House  of  Commons  have  much 
Paper  Office  at  the  Castle  (Lords-  at  heart  this  bill.  It  has  been  mended 
Lieutenant  and  Council's  Letters,  since  it  came  from  them,  as  commonly 
vol.  xvi),  there  is  a  letter  strongly  their  bills  want  to  be '  (Coxe's  Wal- 
recommending  the  measure  to  the  jjole,  ii.  358).  It  is  possible,  however, 
English  authorities  (Dec.  1723),  and  that  this  may  refer  to  alterations  in 
in  Coxe's  Life  of  iVa?j}ole,n.'S58,  there  the  Lords.  Archbishop  Synge  men- 
is  a  letter  from  the  Duke  of  Grafton  tions  in  one  of  his  letters  that  the 


324  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

A  modem  historian,  who  has  displayed  rare  literary  skill  in 
defending  many  forms  of  oppression  and  of  cruelty,  has  lately  made 
the  penal  code  familiar  to  the  public.  His  great  objection  to 
this  leo-islation  is  that  it  was  not  strenuously  enforced,  and  with 
the  exception  of  the  law  offering  the  estate  of  the  Catholic  to 
his  eldest  son,  in  the  event  of  his  apostasy,  he  has  apparently  dis- 
covered but  little  in  its  provisions  repugnant  to  his  sentiments 
either  of  justice  or  of  humanity.  As  regards  the  system  of  direct 
reKgious  repression,  it  is  true  that  it  became,  as  we  shall  hereafter 
see,  gradually  inoperative.  It  was  impossible,  without  producing 
a  state  of  chronic  civil  war,  to  enforce  such  enactments  in  the  nddst 
of  a  large  Catholic  population.  Eewards  were  offered  for  the 
apprehension  of  priests,  but  it  needed  no  small  courage  to  face 
the  hatred  of  the  people.  Savage  mobs  were  ever  ready  to  mark 
out  the  known  priest-hunter,  and  unjust  laws  were  met  by 
illegal  violence.  Undei:  the  long  discipline  of  the  penal  laws, 
the  Irish  Catholics  learnt  the  lesson  which,  beyond  all  others, 
rulers  should  dread  to  teach.  They  became  consummate  adepts 
in  the  arts  of  conspiracy  and  of  disguise.  Secrets  known  to 
hundreds  were  preserved  inviolable  from  authority.  False  in- 
telligence baffled  and  distracted  the  pursuer,  and  the  dread  of 
some  fierce  nocturnal  vengeance  was  often  sufficient  to  quell  the 
cupidity  of  the  prosecutor.  Bishops  came  to  Ireland  in  spite  of 
the  atrocious  penalties  to  which  they  were  subject,  and  ordained 
new  priests.     \A^iat  was  to  be  done  with  them  ?     The  savage 

bill  was  somewhat  moderated  there,  name  indeed  of  high  treason,  yet  in 

though  it  was  still  left  so  savage  that  reality    only    for     adhering     to    an 

Synge   (though  a  very  strong  Pro-  erroneous  religion  and  worshipping 

testant)   was    imable   to   support  it.  God    according    to    it.'     Archbishop 

'If,'  he  says,  'any  Papist  or  Popish  Synge^s  Letters,  JSritish  3f»seum Add. 

priest  will  not  solemnly  upon  oath  MSS.,    6117,    p.    169.     Mr.    Froude 

renounce  the  Pretender  and  also  the  strongly  (though  I  hope  inaccurately) 

Pope's  power  of  deposing  princes  and  denies  that  the  failure  of  the  bill  was 

absolving  subjects  from  their  allegi-  due  to  the  greater  tolerance  of  the 

ance,  let  him  leave  the  kingdom  or  be  English  Government.     He  says  :  '  The 

dealt  with  as  a  traitor.     But  if  such  "Wood  hurricane  was  at  this  moment 

a  man  is  ready  to  do  all  this,  and  unfortunately  at  its  height,  and  ab- 

farther  to  give  security  to  the  Govern-  sorbed    by    its  violence    any    other 

njent  for  his  good  and  loyal  behaviour,  consideration. ' — English  in  h-cland, 

I  must  own  that  I  cannot  come  into  i,  559-561. 
a  law  to  put  him  to  death,  under  the 


I 


CH.  II.  GENERAL   RESULTS   OF   THE  PENAL  LAWS.  325 

sentence  of  the  law,  if  duly  executed,  migLt  have  produced  a 
conflagration  in  Ireland   that   would   have  endangered   every 
Protestant   life,    and   the   scandal  would    have   rung    through 
Europe.     The  ambassadors  of  Catholic  Powers  in  alliance  with 
England  continually  remonstrated  against  the  severity  of  Eng- 
lish anti-Catholic  legislation,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  English 
ministers  felt  that  the  execution  of  priests  in  Ireland  would 
indefinitely  weaken  their  power  of  mitigating  by  their  influence 
the  persecution  of  Protestants  on  the  Continent.     The  adminis- 
tration of  the  law   was  feeble  in  all  its    departments,  and  it 
was  naturally  peculiarly  so  when  it  was  in   opposition  to  the 
strongest  feelings  of  the  great  majority  of  tlie  people.     It  was 
diflBcult  to  obtain  evidence  or  even  jiuries.'     It  was  soon  found 
too   that   the   higher   Catholic  clergy,    if  left   in  peace,   were 
able  and  willing  to  render  inestimable  services  to  the  Govern- 
m<3nt  in  suppressing  sedition  and  crime,  and  as  it  was  quite 
evident  that  the  bulk  of  the  Irish  Catholics  would  not  become 
Protestants,  they  could  not,  in  the  mere  interests  of  order,  be 
left  wholly  ^vithout  religious  ministration.     Besides,  there  was 
in  reality   not  much  religious    fanaticism.     Statesmen  of  the 
stamp  of  Walpole  and  Carteret   were  quite  free  from  such    a 
motive,   and  were  certainly  not  disposed  to  push  matters  to 
extremities.     The  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  eminently 
adverse  to  dogma.     The  sentiment  of  nationality,  and  especially 
the  deep  resentment  produced  by  the  English  restrictions    ou 
trade,  gradually  drew  different   classes  of  Irishmen  together. 
The  multitude  of  lukewarm  Catholics  who  abandoned  their  creed 
tlirough  purely  interested  motives  lowered  the  religious  tempera- 
ture among  the  Protestants,  while,  by  removing  some  of  the 
"  indifferent,  it  increased  it  among  the  Catholics,  and  the  former 
grew  in  time  very  careless  about  theological  doctrines.     The 
system  of  registration  broke  down  through  the  imposition  of  the 
abjuration  oath,  and  through  the  extreme  practical  difficulty  of 

•  Catholics    were    not    excluded      6)  in  all  cases  relating  to  the  Auti- 
from  petty  juries  in  ordinary  cases,       Catholic  laws, 
but  they  were  excluded  (6  Anne,  c. 


326  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EiaHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  n. 

enforcing  the  penalties.  The  policy  of  extinguishing  CathoU- 
cism  by  suppressing  its  services  and  banishing  its  bishops  was 
silently  abandoned ;  before  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury the  laws  against  Catholic  worship  were  virtually  obsolete,^ 
and  before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Parliament 
which  in  the  beginning  of  the  century  had  been  one  of  the  most 
intolerant  had  become  one  of  the  most  tolerant  in  Europe. 

In  this  respect  the  penal  code  was  a  failure.  In  others  it 
was  more  successful.  It  was  intended  to  degrade  and  to  impove- 
rish, to  destroy  in  its  victims  the  spring  and  buoyancy  of 
enterprise,  to  dig  a  deep  chasm  between  Catholics  and  Pro- 
testants. These  ends  it  fuUy  attained.-  It  formed  the  social 
condition,  it  regulated  the  disposition  of  property,  it  exercised  a 
most  enduring  and  pernicious  influence  upon  the  character  of 
the  people,  and  some  of  the  worst  features  of  the  latter  may  be 
distinctly  traced  to  its  influence.  It  may  be  possible  to  find  in 
the  statute-books  both  of  Protestant  and  Catholic  countries 
laws  corresponding  to  most  parts  of  the  Irish  penal  code,  and  in 
some  respects  surpassing  its  most  atrocious  provisions,  but  it  is 
not  the  less  true  that  that  code,  taken  as  a  whole,  has  a  character 
entirely  distinctive.  It  was  directed,  not  against  the  few,  but 
against  the  many.  It  was  not  the  persecution  of  a  sect,  but  the 
degradation  of  a  nation.     It  was  the  instrument  employed  by  a 

"As  early  as  1715  Archbishop  Hist,  of  the  Chitrch  of  Ireland,\\.  212. 
King  wrote  to  Sunderland :  '  By  law  See,  too,  a  very  interesting  report  of 
they  [the  Eoman  Catholics]  are  the  House  of  Lords  in  1731,  appointed 
allowed  a  priest  in  every  parish,  which  to  consider  the  state  of  Popery  in  this 
are  registered  in  pursuance  of  an  Act  kingdom.  O'Connor's  Hist,  of  the 
of  Parliament  made  about  ten  years  Irish  Catholics,  Append,  p.  xxiii. 
ago.  All  bishops,  regulars,  &c.,  and  ^  Arthur  Yoimg,  who  was  in 
all  other  priests  then  not  registered,  Ireland  between  1776  and  1778,  says: 
are  banished,  and  none  allowed  to  '  I  have  conversed  on  the  subject  with 
come  into  the  kingdom  under  severe  some  of  the  most  distinguished  char- 
penalties.  The  design  rvas  that  there  acters  in  the  kingdom,  and  I  cannot 
should  be  no  succession,  and  many  of  after  all  but  declare  that  the  scope, 
those  then  registered  are  since  dead ;  purport,  and  aim  of  the  laws  of  dis- 
yet  for  want  of  adue  execution  of  the  covery  as  executed,  are  not  against 
laws  many  are  come  in  from  foreign  the  Catholic  religion,  which  increases 
parts,  and  there  are  in  the  country  imder  them,  but  against  the  industry 
Popish  bishops  concealed,  that  ordain  and  property  of  whoever  professes 
many.  Little  inquiry  of  )ate  has  been  that  religion.' — Arthur  Young's  Tour 
made    into    these   matters.' — Mant's  i/i  Ireland,  ii.  141. 


CH.  II.  GENERAL  RESULTS   OF  THE  PENAL  LAWS.  327 

conquering  race,  supported  by  a  neighbouring  Power,  to  crush 
to  the  dust  the  people  among  whom  they  were  planted.  And, 
indeed,  when  we  remember  that  the  greater  part  of  it  was  in 
force  for  nearly  a  century,  that  the  victims  of  its  cruelties 
formed  at  least  three-fourths  of  the  nation,  that  its  degrading 
and  dividing  influence  extended  to  every  field  of  social,  political, 
professional,  intellectual,  and  even  domestic  life,  and  that  it  was 
enacted  without  the  provocation  of  any  rebellion,  in  defiance  of 
a  treaty  which  distinctly  guaranteed  the  Irish  Catholics  from 
any  further  oppression  on  account  of  their  religion,  it  may  be 
justly  regarded  as  one  of  the  blackest  pages  in  the  history  of 
persecution.  In  the  words  of  Burke,  '  It  was  a  complete  system, 
full  of  coherence  and  consistency,  well  digested  and  well  com- 
posed in  all  its  parts.  It  was  a  machine  of  wise  and  elaborate 
contrivance,  and  as  well  fitted  for  the  oppression,  impoverish- 
ment, and  degradation  of  a  people,  and  the  debasement  in  them 
of  human  nature  itself,  as  ever  proceeded  from  the  perverted 
ingenuity  of  man.'  The  judgment  formed  of  it  by  one  of  the 
noblest  representatives  of  English  Toryism  was  very  similar. 
'  The  Irish,'  said  Dr.  Johnson,  '  are  in  a  most  unnatural  state, 
for  we  there  see  the  minority  prevailing  over  the  majority. 
There  is  no  instance,  even  in  the  Ten  Persecutions,  of  such 
severity  as  that  which  the  Protestants  of  Ireland  have  exercised 
against  the  Catholics.'  ^ 

The  penal  laws  against  the  Koman  Catholics,  both  in  Eng- 
land and  Ireland,  were  the  immediate  consequence  of  the 
Revolution,  and  were  mainly  the  work  of  tlie  Whig  party.  In 
Ireland  some  of  them  were  carried  under  William,  but  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  the  disabilities  were  comprised  in  what  Burke 
has  truly  described  as  '  the  ferocious  Acts  of  Anne.'     These  laws 


'  Burke's  letter  to  SirH.  Langrishe.  to  justice  and  liumanity,  but  incom- 

Boswell's    Life   of  Johnson,  c.    xxix.  parably  more  politic' — Uxxt.  of  Eng- 

The  judgment  of  Hallam  is  but  little  land,  iii.  p.  401.     Mr.  Grladstone  de- 

less  emphatic.  '  To  have  exterminated  scribes  the  code  as  'that  system  of 

the  Catholics  by  the  sword  or  expelled  penal- laws  against  Koman  Catholics 

them   like   the   Moriscoes  of    Spain  at  once  pettifogging,  base,  and  cruel.' 

would  have  been  little  more  repugnant  —The  Vatican  Decrees,  p.  24. 


328  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

were  carried  in  1703-4  and  in  1709,  and  the  last  of  them  was 
brought  forward  by  the  Government  of  Wharton,  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  members  of  the  party.  It  is  somewhat  re- 
markable, however,  that  the  Catholics  were  not  at  this  time 
directly  deprived  of  the  elective  franchise,  except  so  far  as  the 
imposition  of  the  oath  of  abjuration  operated  as  a  disqualifica- 
tion. Their  extreme  poverty,  the  laws  relating  to  landed  pro- 
perty, and  their  exclusion  from  the  corporations,  no  doubt, 
reduced  the  number  of  Catholic  voters  to  infinitesimal  propor- 
tions, but  the  absolute  and  formal  abolition  of  the  class  did  not 
take  place  till  1727,  and  appears  to  have  been  due  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Primate  Boulter,  who  was  also  the  author  of  severe  laws 
against  nominal  converts.  In  England,  as  in  Ireland,  William 
would  gladly  have  given  toleration  to  the  Catholics,^  but  he 
was  not  prepared  to  risk  any  serious  unpopularity  for  their  sake. 
The  English  Act  of  1699  is  said  to  have  been  brought  forward 
by  opponents  of  the  Government  in  order  to  embarrass  him, 
but  it  was  accepted  by  a  ministry  of  which  Somers  was  the 
leading  member,  and,  in  spite  of  the  promises  which  William, 
before  the  Eevolution,  had  made  to  the  Emperor,  Bishop  Burnet 
assures  us  that  '  the  Court  promoted  the  Bill.'  ^ 

The  extent  and  complication  of  the  Irish  penal  code,  and  the 
great  importance  of  its  political  consequences,  has  made  it 
necessary  for  me  to  dwell  upon  it  at  considerable  length,  but  it 
will  appear  evident  from  the  foregoing  review  that,  severe  as 
were  the  Irish  laws,  they  were  exceeded  in  stringency  by  those 
which  were  imposed  upon  the  English  Catholics.  In  the  latter 
case,  however,  an  evasion  was  much  easier,  nor  could  the 
Catholics,  except  under  very  abnormal  circumstances,  become  a 

'  '  That  he    [William]    favoured  William  in  opposition  to  the  national 

the   Roman  Catholics   as   far   as   he  sentiment.     Lord  Dartmouth  in  his 

could,   and  that  he  was  frequently  note   says:    *He    [Burnet]    does   the 

called  upon  by  the  Emperor  to  do  so,  Jacobites  a  great  deal  of  wrong ;  for 

is  most  certain.' — Lord  Dartmouth's  it  was  the  Whigs  gave  out  that  the 

note  to  Burnet,  ii.  228,  229.  King  was  turned  Jacobite.'     At  all 

-  Burnet's  Oivn  Times,  ii.  228,  229.  events   it  seems  clear  that   the  Bill 

Burnet    (v/ho    supported    this   Bill)  originated  with  the  Opposition  and 

appears  to  think  it  originated  with  was  adopted  by  the  Government, 
the    Jacobites,   who    wished   to   set 


CH.  II.  THE  ENGLISH  CATHOLICS.  329 

danger  to  Eogland.  In  numbers  tliey  were  probably  less  than 
one  in  fifty  of  the  population.'  Among  the  freeholders,  accord- 
ing to  a  computation  made  uuder  William,  they  were  not  quite 
one  in  180,'^  and  tlie  part  of  the  population  which  was  most  Pro- 
testant was  precisely  that  which  was  most  active,  enterprising, 
and  influential.  The  Catholics  abounded  chiefly  in  Lancashire, 
Staffordshire,  and  Sussex  ;  but,  except  in  London,  they  were 
very  rare  in  the  trading  towns.^  Their  actual  condition  under 
the  laws  I  have  described  is  a  question  of  some  difficulty  and 
perplexity.  Judging  by  the  mere  letter  of  the  law  we  sliould 
imagine  that  their  worship  was  absolutely  suppressed,  that  their 
children  were  deprived  of  all  ecclesiastical  education,  and  that 
their  estates  muse  have  speedily  passed  into  other  hands.  Xor 
is  it  easy  to  understand  how  laws  so  recent  and  so  explicit  could 
be  evaded.  Their  history,  however,  is  somewhat  like  that  of 
the  anti-Christian  laws  in  the  Eoman  Empire.  It  is  certain 
that  during  long  periods  of  time  the  early  Christians  professed, 
taught,  and  propagated  their  religion  without  either  conceal- 
ment or  molestation,  though  by  tlie  letter  of  existing  laws  they 
were  subject  to  the  most  atrocious  penalties.  It  is  equally 
certain  that  dm'ing  the  greater  part  of  the  reigns  of  Anne, 
George  I.,  and  George  II.  the  Catholic  worship  in  private 
houses  and  chapels  was  undisturbed,  that  the  estates  of 
Catholics  were  regularly  transmitted  from  father  to  son,  and 
that  they  had  no  serious  difficulty  in  educating  their  children. 
The  Government  refused  to  put  tlie  laws  against  the  priests 
into  execution,  and  legal  evasions  were  employed  and  connived 
at.  Most  of  the  more  active  spirits  of  English  Catholicism  took 
refuge  on  the  Continent,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 

'  Macaulaj-'s  Jllnt.  of  England,  c.  said:   'The  Catholics  of  Britain  are 

vi.  not  one   of   a  hundred;    they   have 

^  Dalrj-mple's  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  pt.  neither    heads,    hearts,    nor    hands 

2,  appen.  to  c.  i.  p.  40,  enough  to  force  a  national  conversion. 

*  Chamberlayne's  Present  State  of  As    the    Protestants    are    the    most 

Great    Britain    (1710),   p.    162.     In  numerous,  so  the  laws  and  constitution 

an   able    paraplilet   called    Britainn  arc  upon  their  side.' — Somers'  Tracts, 

Just  Complaint  of  her  Late  Measure,  x.  458. 
ascribed  to  Sir  J.  Montgomery,  it  is 


330  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTDEY.  CH.  n. 

century  British  or  Irish  seminaries,  colleges,  or  monasteries 
were  thickly  scattered  through  Spain,  Portugal,  Flanders, 
France,  and  Italy.  ^ 

Of  the  condition  of  those  at  home  but  few  notices  remain. 
In  1700  two  letters,  written  to  a  Member  of  Parliament,  were 
published,  complaining  bitterly  of  their  activity.^  It  was 
stated  that  there  were  then  three  Popish  bishops  exercising 
their  functions  in  England — Bishop  Leyhorn  in  London  and 
the  surrounding  counties.  Bishop  Gifford  in  Wales  and  the 
western  counties,  and  Bishop  Smith  in  the  north ;  that  nearly 
every  Popish  lord  or  gentleman  of  substance  had  a  priest 
domesticated  in  his  family ;  that  there  were  but  few  parishes  in 
London  in  which  the  mass  was  not  celebrated  ;  that  Petre,  the 
brother  of  the  well-known  councillor  of  James,  and  the  head  of 
the  English  Jesuits,  was  still  living  under  the  name  of  Spencer 
in  Marylebone  ^ ;  and  that  many  converts  to  Popery  were  made. 
One  conversion — that  of  the  daughter  of  Lord  Baltimore — ap- 
pears to  have  attracted  some  attention.  In  1706  a  remarkable 
petition  was  presented  to  Parliament  from  the  gentry  and  clergy 
of  South  Lancashire,  containing  very  similar  complaints.  The 
petitioners  dilated  especially  upon  the  number  and  missionary 
activity  of  the  Lancashire  priests,  upon  the  open  manner  in 
which  Catholics  thronged  to  mass,  and  upon  the  erection  of  a 
building  which  was  believed  to  be  an  endowed  Popish  seminary. 
The  House  of  Lords  considered  these  statements  worthy  of 
serious  attention,  and  presented  an  address  to  the  Queen,  com- 
plaining of  tl)e  growing  insolence  of  the  Catholics,  and  request- 
ing that  the  Protestant  clergy  in  each  diocese  and  parish  should 
be  enjoined  to  prepare  retiu-ns  stating  their  number,  quality, 

'  See  a  list  of  these  establishments  English  and  I?-i.<t7i  Jesidts,  states  that 

in  The  Present  Danger  of  Poj}ery{llQ'd),  Spencer    was    the    name    taken    by 

PP-  4-6-  Edward    Petre    himself    (the    Privy 

^Ibid.  See  also  another  anonymous  Councillor),  in  the  earlier  part  of  his 

tract,    called    Considerations   of   the  mission  in  England.    The  chapters  in 

Present  State  of  Popery  in  England  Butler's    Historical    Memoirs   of  the 

(1723).  _         ^        ^  English    Catholics    devoted    to    this 

^  Oliver,  in  his   Collections  illus-  period  are   imfortunately   extremely 

trating  the  Biography  of  the  Scotch,  meagre. 


CH.  n.  THE  ENGLISH  CATHOLICS.  331 

estates,  and  places  of  abode.'  How  far  these  measures  proved 
efficacious  it  is  difficult  to  say,  but  in  1711  we  find  the  Lower 
House  of  Convocation  complaining  that  the  Papists  '  have 
swarmed  in  our  streets  of  late  years,  and  have  been  very  busy  in 
making  converts,'  and  attributing  to  the  mode  in  which  they 
conducted  their  controversy  a  considerable  part  of  the  prevailing 
infidelity.^  The  reign  of  Anne  is  the  period  in  which  the  most 
ferocious  of  the  penal  laws  in  Ireland  were  enacted,  but  in  Eng- 
land the  Catholics  were  not  violently  persecuted.  The  Govern- 
ment was  interceding  with  the  Emperor  in  favour  of  his  per- 
secuted Protestant  subjects,  and  natm-ally  shrank  from  measures 
that  would  impair  its  influence.  The  existence  of  a  powerful 
party  attached  to  the  Popish  Pretender,  the  semi-Catholic 
doctrines  of  some  of  the  Nonjurors,  the  formal  negotiation 
opened  by  Archbishop  Wake  with  a  view  to  a  union  of  the 
Anglican  and  G-allican  Churches,  the  dispositions  of  the  Queen, 
which  were  not  violently  anti-Catholic,  and  perhaps  also  the 
fact  that  a  Catholic  poet  was  at  the  head  of  English  literature, 
had  all  tended  to  improve  the  position  of  the  sect.  The  law 
which  determined  that  any  Catholic  over  eighteen  who  did 
not  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  or  make  a  declaration  of 
Protestantism,  should  be  incapable  of  inheriting  land,  and  that 

'  Pari.  HiM.  vi.  ol€-517.     After  time  that  the  French  were  upon  onr 

the  rebellion  of   1715,  when  an  Act  coasts  and  our  people  daily  expected 

was  carried  obliging  all  Catholics  and  the  news  of  their  being  landed,  the 

Nonjurors  to  transmit  to    Commis-  wealthier  of  our  Papists  instead  of 

sioners  appointed  for  the  purpose  a  being  seized  were  cringed  to  with  all 

register  of  their  estates,  it  appeared  possible  tenders  of  honour  and  respect, 

that  the  yearly  value,  of  the  estates  of  and  those  very  gentlemen  who  were 

Lancashire  recusants  was  13,158/. — a  entrusted  with  the  taking  of  them 

very  large  sum  when  we  consider  the  into  custody  seemed  rather  inclined 

rude  state  of  agriculture  and  the  un-  to  list  themselves  in  their  service.' 

developed  condition  of  the  country. —  British    Museum    Add.    MSS.    6116. 

Picton"s  MenwHals  of  Liverpool, pt.  i.  Shortly  after  this  time  considerable 

p.  165.  scandal  was  caused  by  the  publication 

■'  Lathbury's  ffist.  of  Conrocatxon,  of  a  clever  but  very  scurrilous  poem 

p.  416.     In  August  1703,  Nicholson,  against   Protestantism,   called    E»g- 

the  bishop  of  Carlisle,  writes  to  tlie  land's  Reforviation  from  the  Time  of 

Primate,    '  Popery  has   advanced   by  llcnry   VIII.  to  the   end  of    Oatcis 

very  long  strides  of  late  years  in  tliis  Plot,  by  Thomas  Ward.  It  was  writ  i en 

country,  and  too  many  of  our  magis-  in  Hudibrastic  verse,  and  professed 

trates  love  to  have  it  so.    At  the  very  to  be  published  at  Hamburg  in  1710. 


332  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

the  estate  he  would  otherwise  have  inherited  should  pass  to  the 
next  Protestant  heir,  was  evaded  and  made  almost  nugatory.  It 
was  intended  to  compel  all  Catholic  landlords  to  sell  their  pro- 
perty, but  it  was  determined  that  the  burden  of  proof  rested 
with  the  Protestant  claimant,  and  that  it  was  for  him  to  prove 
that  the  Catholic  had  not  made  this  declaration ;  and  a  Bill  which 
was  introduced  in  1706  to  remedy  this  defect  bypiaking  it  ne- 
cessary for  the  Catholic  not  only  to  make  the  declaration,  but 
also  to  prove  that  he  had  done  so,  was  rejected  chiefly  on  the 
gi'ound  that  it  would  injure  the  negotiations  of  England  in 
favour  of  the  persecuted  subjects  of  the  Emperor.^  The  reward 
of  lOOl.  offered  for  the  conviction  of  a  Catholic  priest  might  be 
expected  to  produce  numerous  informers ;  but  the  judges  were 
very  severe  in  the  evidence  they  required,  and  it  was  decided 
that  those  who  prosecuted  in  order  to  obtain  the  reward  must 
do  so  at  their  own  expense.^  In  the  Hanoverian  period,  as  well 
as  in  the  reign  of  Anne,  the  Catholics  enjoyed  a  considerable, 
though  precarious,  toleration.  An  acute  observer,  whose  tour 
through  England  and  Wales  was  published  in  1722,  tells  us 
that  '  to  the  north  of  "Winchester  there  was  a  very  large  monas- 
tery, a  handsome  part  of  which  still  remained,  called  Hide 
House,  inhabited  by  Koman  Catholics, where  they  have  a  private 
chapel  for  the  service  of  the  gentlemen  of  that  religion  there- 
abouts, of  which  there  are  several  of  note,  and  who  live  very 
quietly  and  friendly  with  their  neighbours  ;  they  have  also  a 
private  seminary  for  their  children,  three  miles  off,  where  they 
prepare  them  for  the  colleges  abroad.'^  Tlie  same  traveller 
visited  the  holy  well  of  St.  Winifred  in  Wales,  and  found  the 
Catholic  pilgrimages  to  it  undiminished.  The  Catholic  church 
at  the  well  had,  it  is  true,  been  converted  into  a  Protestant 

'  Pa7-l.  Hist.  vi.  514-515.  Burnet's  ^  A   legal   opinion   to   this  effect 

Own  Times,  ii.  229,  440.     A  few  Eng-  was  given  July  22,  1714.     Domestic 

lish  cases  relating  to  property  which  Papers,  Record  Office, 
fell  under  the  code  and  were  tried  '  A    Journey    through    England: 

under  Anne  and  her  two  successors  Familiar  Letters  from  a  Gentleman 

will  be  found  in  Bacon's  J.&?'i<^^«ieft^o/'  here     to     his    Friend    abroad     [by 

the  Law  (7  ed.)  vi.  125-1.32.     See  too  Macky],  vol.  ii.  p.  26. 
Howard's  Popery  Cases,  pp.  301-324. 


CH.  II.  THE   ENGLISH   CATHOLICS.  333 

school,  but  '  to  supply  the  loss  of  this  chapel  the  Roman 
Catholics  have  chapels  erected  almost  in  every  inn  for  the 
devotion  of  the  pilgrims  tliat  flock  hither  from  all  the  Popish 
parts  of  England.'  ^  Three  years  later  Defoe's  well-known  '  Tour 
through  Great  Britain '  appeared.  He  mentions  without  com- 
ment 'Popish  chapels'  among  the  religious  edifices  existing  in 
London,'^  and,  having  visited  Durham,  he  writes  of  it :  '  The  town 
is  well-built  but  old,  full  of  Eoman  Catholics,  who  live  peaceably 
and  disturb  nobody  and  nobody  them,  for  we,  being  there  on  a 
holiday,  saw  them  going  as  publicly  to  mass  as  the  Dissenters 
did  on  other  days  to  their  meeting-houses.'  '  The  Earl  of 
Derwentwater,  who  was  executed  for  his  complicit}^  in  the  rebel- 
lion of  1715,  was  a  Catholic,  and  it  was  a  popular  tradition  that 
his  body,  on  its  journey  from  London  to  its  burial  place  in 
Scotland,  was  moved  only  by  night,  and  rested  every  day  in  a 
place  dedicated  to  the  Catholic  worship.* 

As  the  century  advanced,  the  complaints  of  the  growth  of 
Popery  became  very  numerous.  The  law  of  England  still  laid 
down  that  '  when  a  person  is  reconciled  to  the  See  of  Eome,  or 
procures  others  to  be  reconciled,  the  offence  amounts  to  high 
treason,'  ®  and  the  sentence  of  perpetual  imprisonment  still  hung 
over  every  Catholic  priest ;  but  yet  it  appears  evident  that 
Catholicism  in  certain  classes  was  extending.  It  was  asserted  in 
1735  that  there  was  'scarcely  a  petty  coffee-house  in  London 
where  there  is  not  a  Popish  lecture  read  on  Sunday  evenings.'® 
Eeports,  which  appear  to  liave  been  entirely  calumnious,  were 
spread  that  Bishop  Butler  had  died  a  Catholic.^  '  The  growth 
of  Popery,'  wrote  Doddridge,  in  1735,  '  seems  to  give  a  general 
and  just  alarm.     A  priest  from  a  neighboiu:ing  gentleman's 

'  Ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  134.     See  too,  on  c.  Ixxl. 

the  pilgrimages  to  this  well,  Rush's  *  Blackstbne. 

Hibei'nia   Cunosa  (1769),  p.    4.     St.  '  This    was   stated    in    the  Free 

Winifred   was  the   tirst  stage   from  Briton,  ot  January  1735.     See  a  very 

Chester  to  Holyhead.  interesting  collection  of  passages  on 

*  Defoe's     Tour     through     Great  this  subject,  chiedy  from  old  news- 
Britain,.ii.  loG.  papers,   in    Miss    Wedgwoods    John 

*  Hsid.  iii.  189.  Wesley,  pp.  281-283. 

*  Scott's  Tales  of  a  Grandfatlier,  '  Bartletfs  Life  of  Butler,  p.  164. 


334  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ii. 

family  makes  frequent  visits  hither,  and  many  of  the  Chm-ch 
people  seem  Popishly  inclined.'  ^  Seeker  complained,  in  1738, 
that  '  the  emissaries  of  the  Eomish  Church  .  .  .  have  begun  to 
reap  great  harvests  in  the  field.'  ^  Sherlock,  in  the  letter  which 
he  issued  on  the  occasion  of  the  earthquake  of  1 750,  mentions  the 
'  great  increase  of  Popery '  among  the  crying  evils  of  the  time.^ 
Browne  in  his  '  Estimate  of  the  Manners  and  Principles  of  the 
Time,'  which  appeared  a  few  years  later,  echoes  the  same  com- 
plaint. 'The  priests,'  he  writes,  'are  assiduous  in  making 
proselytes,  and  in  urging  their  party  to  make  them.  There  is 
at  present  a  gentleman  in  the  West  of  England  who  openly 
gives  51.  to  every  person  who  becomes  a  proselyte  to  the  Eoman 
Church ;  and  the  additional  bribe  of  a  Sunday  dinner  for  every 
such  person  that  attends  mass.  Allurements  of  the  same  kind 
are  known  to  prevail  in  most  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  among 
those  of  the  highest  rank,  though  not  so  openly  declared.'  *  A 
fashion  which  had  arisen  among  ladies  of  wearing  Capuchin 
cloaks  was  somewhat  absurdly  reprehended,  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  teaching  men  '  to  view  the  cowl  not  only  witli  patience 
but  complacency.'^  The  leaders  of  the  Dissenters  were  so 
sensible  of  the  danger  from  the  activity  of  the  priests  that  they 
established  in  1734  and  1735  a  course  of  anti-Popery  lectures, 
in  Salters'  Hall ;  and  the  laws  against  priests  were  so  entirely  in 
abeyance  that  two  of  these  had  a  formal  controversy  with  two 
Protestant  divines.^  In  1738  Bishop  Gibson,  with  a  view  of 
checking  the  Eomish  propagandism,  collected  and  republished, 
under  the  title  of  '  A  Preservation  against  Popery,'  the  anti- 
Papal  tracts  which  had  appeared  in  England  between  the 
Eestoration  and  the  Eevolution. 

At  the  time  of  the  rebellion  of  1745,  it  is  true,  the  laws  were 

Doddridge's  Dimij,  iii.  p.  182.  published    by  both    sides,   and  was 

"  Seeker's  tViaT-f/es,  Charge  i.  1738.  therefore,  I  suppose,  at  least  partially 

'  Gentlema,n''s  Magazine,  nbQ.  public.   This  book  furnishes  consider- 

^  Browne'sjEs^iwofejii.  p.  140-141.  able  evidence  of  the  activity  of  the 

'  See  Wedgvi^ood's  Wesley,  p.  283.  Popish   controversy  among  the  Dis- 

*  Wilson's     Hist,     of    JJisse/iting  senters. 
Churches,  ii.  368.     The   debate    was 


\ 


CH.  II.  THE  ENGLISH  CATHOLICS.  335 

more  severely  enforced.  A  proclamation  was  issued,  banishing  all 
Catholics  from  London,  and  forbidding  them  to  go  more  than  five 
miles  from  their  homes ;  and  another  proclamation  offered  a  reward 
for  the  capture  of  priests  and  Jesuits,  some  of  whom  were  actually 
apprehended.  A  mass-house  was  about  this  time  destroyed  by  the 
populace,  at  Stokesley,  in  Yorkshire,  and  another  burnt  by  the 
sailors  at  Sunderland.'  Resident  Catholic  ambassadors  com- 
plained of  the  severities  of  the  Government  against  their  co- 
religionists ;  but  these  severities  do  not  appear  to  have  been  very 
serious,  and  they  were  purely  exceptional  events  produced  by  the 
existence  of  a  great  public  danger,  and  by  the  notorious  sympathy 
of  the  Catholics  with  the  invaders.  In  general  the  chief  effects 
of  the  legislation  against  the  Catholic  worship  appear  to  have 
been  that  it  was  carried  on  unostentatiously  in  private  houses, 
that  proselytism  was  difficult  and  somewhat  dangerous,  and  that 
any  Catholic  who  was  suspected  of  disaffection  was  absolutely  at 
the  mercy  of  the  Government.  The  unequal  and  oppressive 
taxation,  however,  and  the  innumerable  disqualifications,  bring- 
ing with  them  a  great  social  stigma,  still  continued,  and  the  laws 
against  the  priesthood  offered  such  inducements  to  informers 
that  their  position  was  one  of  continual  danger.  As  we  shall 
hereafter  see,  they  were  occasionally  prosecuted  at  a  much  later 
period  than  that  with  which  we  are  at  present  concerned  ;  and 
in  1729 — in  the  reign  of  George  II.  and  under  the  ministry  of 
Townshend  and  Walpole — a  Franciscan  friar,  named  Atkinson, 
died  in  Hurst  Castle,  in  the  seventy-fourth  year  of  his  life  and 
the  thirtieth  of  his  imprisonment,  having  been  incarcerated  in 
1700,  for  performing  the  functions  of  a  Catholic  priest.^  The 
only  minister  who  appears'  to  have  bad  any  real  wish  to  relieve 
the  Catholics  was  Stanhope,  who  had  contemplated  some  miti- 
gations of  the  penal  code.  In  1719  negotiations  took  place 
between  his  ministry  and  some  leading  Catholics,  through 
the   intervention  of   Strickland,  the  Bishop   of  Namur;    but 

"  British  Chromlogist,  Dec.  17i5,       15).    Butler's  Historical  Memoirs,  ii. 
Jan.  1746.  63. 

*  Historical  Register  /br  1729  (Oct. 


336  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ii. 

difficulties  raised  on  the  Catholic  side,  for  a  time  impeded  them, 
and  the  disasters  of  the  South  Sea  Company  brought  the  design 
to  a  termination.^  As  far  as  the  condition  of  Catholics  was 
improved  under  George  II.,  it  was  only  by  a  milder  adminis- 
tration of  existing  laws,  and  by  the  more  tolerant  maxims 
which  prevailed  among  the  higher  clergy.  In  the  days  of 
Cromwell  and  Milton  it  had  been  argued  that  Catholicism  was 
idolatry,  and  that  it  ought  therefore  to  be  suppressed,  by  virtue 
of  the  Old  Testament  decree  against  that  sin.  In  the  teaching 
of  the  Latitudinarian  divines,  and  of  the  classes  who  adopted 
the  principles  of  Locke,  this  doctrine  had  disappeared,  and 
the  measures  against  Catholicism  were  defended  solely  on  the 
ground  of  the  hostility  of  that  religion  to  the  civil  govern- 
ment. 

In  Scotland  the  Kirk  ministers  watched  it  with  a  fiercer 
animosity  than  the  English  clergy;  but  even  in  Scotland  it 
was  not  extinguished.  It  found  a  powerful  protector  in  the 
ducal  family  of  Gordon.  In  1699  the  Duke  of  Gordon  had 
been  arrested  for  holding  Popish  meetings  in  his  lodging  at 
Edinburgh,  but  he  was  liberated  after  a  fortnight's  imprison- 
ment. In  1722  a  meeting  of  fifty  Catholics  was  surprised  in 
the  house  of  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Gordon,  and  the  priest  for 
a  time  imprisoned.  He  was  soon,  however,  bailed,  and  not 
appearing  to  stand  his  trial,  was  outlawed.  The  Gordon  family 
abandoned  Catholicism  on  the  death  of  the  second  Duke,  in  1728, 
and  from  that  time  we  very  rarely  find  traces  of  Catholicism  in 
the  Lowlands.  In  the  Highlands  it  had  still  its  devoted  adhe- 
rents. A  small  cottage,  called  Scalan,  at  Glenlivat,  one  of  the 
wildest  and  most  untrodden  spots  among  the  mountains  of 
Aberdeenshire,  continued  during  most  of  the  eighteenth  century 
to  be  a  seminary,  where  eight  or  ten  youths  were  usually 
educating  for  the  priesthood.  Many  of  the  old  superstitions 
lingered  side  by  side  with  the  new  faith,  and  an  occasional 
priest,  or  monk,  or  even  Jesuit,  celebrated  in  private  houses 
the   worship  of  his  forefathers.      In  the   western   islands,   in 

'  Butler's  Histarical  Jlemoifs,  ii.  59. 


CH.  n.  DISBELIEVEKS  IN  THE   TRINITY.  337 

several  of  the  mountain  valleys  of  Moray,  and  especially  on  the 
property  of  the  Dukes  of  Gordon,  the  Catholics  continued 
numerous,  and  they  appear  to  have  been  but  little  molested. 
As  late  as  1773,  when  Dr.  Johnson  visited  the  Hebrides,  there 
were  two  small  islands,  named  Egg  and  Canna,  which  were 
still  altogether  inhabited  by  Catholics.' 

The  other  class  excluded  from  the  benefits  of  the  Toleration 
Act,  and  existing  only  in  violation  of  the  law,  consisted  of  all 
those  who  impugned  either  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  or  the  supernatural  character  of  Christianity,  or  the 
divine  authority  of  Scripture.  All  such  persons,  by  a  law  of 
William,  were  disabled,  upon  the  first  conviction,  from  holdino- 
any  ecclesiastical,  civil,  or  military  office,  and  were  deprived, 
upon  the  second  conviction,  of  the  power  of  suing  or  prosecut- 
ing in  any  law  court,  of  being  guardian  or  executor,  and  of 
receiving  any  legacy  or  deed  of  gift.  They  were  also 
made  liable  to  imprisonment  for  three  years ;  but  in  case 
they  renounced  their  error  publicly,  within  four  months  of 
the  first  conviction,  they  were  discharged  from  their  disabi- 
lities.'^ Avowed  Unitarianism  has  never  been,  and  is  never 
likely  to  be  a  very  important  or  very  aggressive  sect,  for  the 
great  majority  of  those  who  hold  its  fundamental  tenet  are 
but  little  disposed  to  attach  themselves  to  any  definite  relio^ious 
body,  or  to  take  any  great  interest  in  sectarian  strife.  The 
small  school  which  followed  Socinus  had  at  first  but  few  dis- 
ciples in  England,  and  exercised  no  appreciable  influence  in 
the  conflict  of  parties.  Under  Edward  VI.,  Joan  Bocher  and  a 
Dutchman  named  Van  Parris  had  been  burnt  for  their  heresies 
concerning  the  Trinity ;  and  two  other  heretics  were  burnt, 
on  a  similar  charge,  under  James  I.     The  term  Unitarian,  liow- 

'  SeeLaxihlsinShaw^s  Hist,  of  Moray  Statistical  Accotint  of  Scotland,  xiii. 

(1775),  p.  380 ;  Chambers'   Domentic  33,  and  a  few  notices  of  Jesuits  in 

Annals  of  Scotland,  iii.  204-205,  406,  Scotland,  in  Oliver's  Collections  xllus- 

554 ;    Martin's     Description     of    the  trating    the    Biography    of    Scotch, 

Western  Islands.    Johnsons  Tour  in  English,  and  Irish   Members  of  the 

the  Hebrides,  pp,  1C2,  IJtG  ;  Burtons  Society  of  Jesus. 
Hist,  of  Scotland, n.SoO-'SGl;  Sinclair '.s  ^  y  ^' iq  WiHiani  m.  r.  32. 

VOL.  I.  23 


338  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch,  n. 

ever,  appears  to  have  been  first  adopted  by  John  Biddle,  a 
teacher  of  some  learning  and  of  great  zeal  and  piety,  who, 
durino-  the  stormy  days  of  the  Commonwealth,  defended  the 
doctrines  of  Socinus  with  unwearied  energy,  both  in  the  pulpit 
and  with  his  pen.  A  law  had  recently  been  passed,  making  it  a 
capital  offence  to  impugn  the  received  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
and  this  law  would  probably  have  been  applied  to  Biddle,  had 
not  the  influence  of  Cromwell  and  the  support  of  some  powerful 
friends  been  employed  to  screen  him.  As  it  was,  his  life  was  a 
continual  martyrdom.  His  works  were  biurnt  by  the  hangman, 
he  was  banished  for  a  time  to  the  Scilly  Islands,  fined,  and 
repeatedly  imprisoned,  and  he  at  last  died  in  prison  in  1662.' 
He  left  a  small  sect  behind  him,  its  most  remarkable  members 
being  Emlyn,  to  whose  long  imprisonment  I  have  already 
referred,  and  Firmin,  a  London  merchant,  of  considerable 
wealth  and  influence,  who  was  one  of  the  foremost  supporters 
of  every  leading  work  of  charity  in  his  time,  and  who  was 
intimately  acquainted  with  Tillotson  and  several  other  leading 
Anglican  divines.^  At  his  expense  several  anonymous  tracts  in 
defence  of  Socinian  views  were  published.  Less  advanced  heresies 
about  the  Trinity  are  said  to  have  been  widely  diffused  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  Arianism  may  be  detected  in  the 
'  Paradise  Lost.'  It  tinged  the  theology  of  Newton,  and  it 
spread  gradually  through  several  dissenting  sects.  Early  in  the 
eighteenth  century  it  rose  into  great  prominence.  Whiston,  who 
was  one  of  the  most  learned  theologians  of  his  time,  and  the 
professor  of  mathematics  at  Cambridge,  openly  maintained  it. 
Lardner,  who  occupies  so  conspicuous  a  place  among  the 
apologists  for  Christianity,  was  at  one  time  an  Arian,  though 
his  opinion  seems  to  have  ultimately  inclined  to  Socinianism.^ 
Views  which  were  at  least  semi- Arian  appeared  timidly  in  the 

'  See  Wallace's    Anti-THnitai^an  prefixed  to  Lardner's  Works,  p.  xxxii. 

Biograjjliy.  His  ultimate  view   is   said  to   have 

■Life    of   Mr,    Thomas    Firmin,  been  that 'Jesus  was  a  man  appointed, 

citizen  of   London.     By  J.    Cornish.  exalted,  loved,  and  honoured  by  God 

1780.  beyond  all  other  beings.' 

'  See  Kippis's  Life  of   Lardner, 


cs.  11.  SCEPTICAL  WORKS,  339 

writings  of  Clarke ;  and  the  long  Trinitarian  controversy,  in 
which  Sherlock,  Jane,  South,  Wallis,  Burnet,  Tillotson,  and  many 
others  took  part,  familiarised  the  whole  nation  with  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  question.  It  was,  however,  among  the  Presbyterians 
that  the  defections  from  orthodoxy  were  most  numerous  and 
most  grave.  In  1719  two  Presbyterian  ministers  were  deprived 
of  their  pastoral  charge  on  account  of  their  Unitarian  opinions, 
but  soon  either  Arianism  or  Socinianism  became  the  current  senti- 
ments of  the  Presbyterian  seminaries,  and  by  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  most  of  the  principal  Presbyterian  ministers 
and  congregations  had  silently  discarded  the  old  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.i       - 

"When  the  intention  of  Whiston  and  Clarke  to  stir  this 
question  was  first  knowm,  Godolphin,  who  was  then  in  power, 
remonstrated  with  them,  saying  to  the  latter  that  '  the  affairs 
of  the  public  were  with  difficulty  then  kept  in  the  hands  of 
those  that  were  at  all  for  liberty ;  that  it  was  therefore 
an  unseasonable  time  for  the  publication  of  a  book  that  would 
make  a  great  noise  and  disturbance,  and  that  therefore  the 
ministers  desired  him  to  forbear  till  a  surer  opportunity  should 
ofifer  itself.'  "^  The  storm  of  indignation  that  arose  in  Convoca- 
tion upon  the  appearance  of  the  work  of  \Miiston  in  some 
degree  justified  the  judgment,  but,  on  the  whole,  few  things  are 
more  remarkable  in  the  eighteenth  century  than  the  ease  and 
impunity  with  which  anti-Trinitarian  views  were  propagated. 
The  prosecution  of  Emlyn  called  forth  an  emphatic  and  noble 
protest  from  Hoadly,  and  though  Whiston  was  deprived  of  his 
professorship,  and  censured  by  Convocation,  he  was  not  other- 
wise molested.  Xoisier  controversies  drew  away  most  of  the 
popular  fanaticism,  and  the  suppression  of  Convocation  was 
eminently  favourable  to  religious  liberty.  A  Bill  which  was 
brought  forward  in  1721,  supported  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  and  by  some  other  prelates,  to  increase  the  strin- 

'  Bogue   and    Bennett's   ITi^.  of  *  Whiston 's    Memoirs    of  Clarlu, 

Dissenters,    ii.    300-303.      See,    too,       p.  25. 
Lindsay's  Historical  View.  '  Pari.  Hist.  vii.  893-895. 


340  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  n. 

gency  of  the  legislation  against  anti-Trinitarian  writings  was 
rejected,^  and  the  laws  against  anti-Trinitarians  were  silently  dis- 
used. Works,  however,  which  were  directed  against  the  Christian 
relio-ion  were  still  liable  to  prosecution,  though  the  measures 
taken  against  them  were  not  usually  very  severe.  '  The  Fable 
of  the  Bees  '  of  Mandeville,  the  '  Christianity  Not  Mysterious ' 
of  Toland,  the  '  Eights  of  the  Christian  Church  '  by  Tindal,  and 
the  '  Posthumous  Works '  of  Bolingbroke,  were  all  presented  by 
the  Grand  Jury  of  Middlesex.  When  Collins,  in  1713,  pub- 
lished his  '  Discourse  on  Freethinking,'  the  outcry  was  so  violent 
that  the  author  thought  it  prudent  to  take  refuge  for  a  time  in 
Holland.  Woolston — whose  mind  seems  to  have  been  positively 
disordered — having  published,  in  1727  and  the  two  following 
years,  some  violent  discourses  impugning  the  Miracles  of  Christ, 
was  sentenced  to  a  year's  imprisonment,  and  to  a  fine  of  1 ,0001. — 
a  sentence  against  which  the  apologist  Lardner  very  nobly  pro- 
tested, and  which  Clarke  endeavoured  to  mitigate.  When 
Toland  visited  Ireland  his  book  was  burnt  by  order  of  the  Irish 
Parliament,  and  he  only  escaped  arrest  by  a  precipitate  flight.' 
Towards  the  middle  of  the  century,  however,  interest  in  these 
subjects  had  almost  ceased.  The  '  Treatise  on  Human  Nature,' 
by  Hume,  which  appeared  in  1739,  though  one  of  the  greatest 
masterpieces  of  sceptical  genius,  fell  still-born  from  the  press, 
and  the  posthumous  works  of  Bolingbroke,  in  spite  of  the  noisy 
reputation  of  their  author,  scarcely  produced  a  ripple  of  emo- 
tion.^ A  letter  written  by  Montesquieu  to  Warburton  was 
quoted  with  much  applause,  in  which  that  great  French  thinker 
somewhat  cynically  argued  that,  however  false  might  be  the 
established  religion  in  England,  no  good  man  should  attack  it, 
as  it  injured  no  one,  was  divested  of  its  worst  prejudices,  and 
was  the  source  of  many  practical  advantages.^     An  acute  ob- 

'  South -wTTote  with  great  delight :  '^  Hume's  Autobiogi7-aphi/.  Browne's 

•Your  Parliament  presently  sent  him  Estimate,  i.  56. 

packing,  and  without  the  help  of  a  ^  KeferringtoBolingbroke'sphilo- 

faggot  soon  made  the  kingdom  too  hot  sophy,  he  wrote,  'What  motive  can 

for  him.'    See  Disraeli's  Calamities  of  there     be     for     attacking     revealed 

Authors,  ii.  133.  religion  in  England  /  In  that  country 


cji.  II.  RELIGIOUS  INDIFFERENCE,  3-il 

server  on  the  side  of  orthodoxy  noticed  that  there  was  at  this 
time  little  sceptical  speculation  in  England,  because  there  was 
but  little  interest  in  any  theological  question ;'  and  a  great 
sceptic  described  the  nation  as  '  settled  into  the  most  cool 
indifference  with  regard  to  religious  matters  that  is  to  be  found 
in  any  nation  of  the  world.' '  Latitudiuarianism  had  spread 
widely,  but  almost  silently,  thi-ough  all  religious  bodies,  and  dog- 
matic teaching  was  almost  excluded  from  the  pulpit.  In  spite 
of  occasional  outbursts  of  popular  fanaticism,  a  religious  languor 
fell  over  England,  as  it  had  fallen  over  the  Continent ;  and  if  it 
produced  much  neglect  of  duty  among  clergymen,  and  much 
laxity  of  morals  among  laymen,  it  at  least  in  some  degree 
assuaged  the  bitterness  of  sectarian  animosity  and  prepared  the 
way  for  the  future  triumph  of  religious  liberty. 

it  is  so  purged  of    all   destructive  and  where  this  champion  if  he  should 

prejudices  that  it  can  do  no  harm,  succeed — nay,   should  he   be  in  the 

but  on  the   contrary  is   capable   of  right   too — would   only   deprive    his 

producing  numberless    good   effects.  country  of   numberless   real  benefits 

I    am    sensible     that    in    Spain    or  for  the  sake  of  establishing  a  merely 

Portugal  a  man  who  is  going  to  be  speculative  truth.' — Annual  llegintei; 

burnt  .  .  .  hath  very  good  reason  to  1760,  p.  189. 
attack  it.  .  .  .  But  the  case  is  very  '  Browne's  Estimate,  i.  52-58. 

different  in   England,  where  a  man  '  Hume's  Essay  on  Mitional  Cha- 

that  attacks  revealed  religion  does  it  racters. 
without  the   least  personal  motive, 


342  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CHAPTEE  III. 

While  the  changes  described  in  the  last  chapter  were  taking  place, 
the  history  of  parties  in  England  continued  to  present  a  singular 
monotony.  The  stigma  of  Jacobitism  still  rested  on  the  Tories, 
though  Bolingbroke  did  everything  in  his  power  to  efface  it. 
This  great  Tory  statcBman  had  soon  discovered  that  the  confi- 
dence of  the  Pretender  was  never  given  to  any  but  the  most 
bigoted  Catholics,  and  that  his  narrow  and  superstitious  mind 
was  wholly  unsuited  for  the  delicate  task  of  reconciling  the 
political  principles  of  the  Tory  party  with  their  religious  interests 
and  sjnnpathies.  Slighted  and  neglected  by  the  master  for  whom 
he  had  sacrificed  so  much,  finding  his  political  judgment 
habitually  treated  as  of  less  value  than  that  of  ignorant  and 
inexperienced  fanatics,  he  soon  openly  quarrelled  with  the  Pre- 
tender, received  his  dismissal  in  1716,  and  with  a  heart  burning 
with  resentment  abjured  all  further  connection  with  Jacobitism. 
The  importance  of  such  a  secession  from  the  Jacobite  ranks  was 
self-evident.  Bolingbroke  was  the  greatest  orator  and  the  most 
brilliant  party  leader  of  his  time.  He  had  been,  and,  in  spite  of 
recent  errors,  he  would  probably,  if  restored  to  English  political 
life,  again  be,  the  leader  of  the  Church  and  of  the  country 
party,  and  he  could  do  more  than  any  other  living  man  to 
reconcile  the  Tory  party  to  the  new  dynasty.  His  first  object 
was  to  be  restored  to  his  country,  fortune,  and  titles ;  he  oflfered 
his  services  unreservedly  to  the  Government,  and  his  violent 
quarrel  with  the  Jacobites  was  a  pledge  of  his  sincerity. 

The  Whig    ministry   were,  however,   in   general  far  from 
desiring  to  accept  the  offer.     On  public  grounds  they  probably 


CH.  III.  POSITION   OF  BOLINGBROKE.  343 

doubted  the  sincerity,  or  at  least  the  permanence  of  his  conver- 
sion. *  Parties,'  as  Pulteney  once  said,  '  like  snakes,  are  moved 
by  their  tails.'  It  was  certain  that  the  Tory  party  in  1716  was 
almost  wholly  Jacobite.  There  was  nothing  in  the  principles  or 
antecedents  of  Bolingbroke  to  make  it  improbable  that  if  it 
again  suited  his  interests  he  would  place  himself  in  sympathy 
with  his  followers,  and  it  was  evident  that  his  presence  would 
give  them  an  importance  they  would  not  otherwise  possess. 
Besides  this,  it  was  the  obvious  party  interest  of  the  Whigs  to 
exclude  from  the  arena  the  most  formidable  of  all  their  oppo- 
nents, and  there  was  no  other  statesman  whom  they  regarded  with 
such  animosity.  ]Much  as  they  desired  the  maintenance  of  the 
dynasty,  they  had  little  desire  to  see  the  Tory  party  reconciled 
to  it.  They  well  knew  that  their  monopoly  of  place  and  power 
depended  upon  the  success  with  which  they  represented  their 
opponents,  both  to  the  King  and  to  the  country,  as  necessarily 
Jacobite.  As  Bolingbroke  himself  very  happily  said,  in  the  dis- 
position of  parties  in  England,  '  the  accidental  passions '  of  the 
people  were  on  one  side,  '  their  settled  habits  of  thinking '  on 
the  other.  The  natural  preponderance  of  classes  and  sentiment 
was  with  the  Tories,  but  the  temporary  association  of  Toryism 
with  Popery  and  with  rebellion  had  thrown  all  power  into  the 
hands  of  the  Whigs.  A  Tory  party  thorouglily  reconciled  to 
the  dynasty  and  guided  by  a  statesman  of  great  genius  and 
experience  would  probably  in  no  long  time  become  the  ruler  of 
the  State. 

Such  were  probably  the  motives  of  the  Whig  leaders  in  reject- 
ing the  overtm-es  of  Bolingbroke.  Walpole,  who,  no  doubt, 
clearly  saw  in  him  the  most  dangerous  of  competitors,  was 
especially  vehement  and  especially  resolute  in  maintaining  his 
ostracism,  and  it  was  not  until  1723  that  Bolingbroke  obtained, 
by  the  influence  of  the  King's  mistress,  a  pardon  which  enabled 
him  to  return  to  England.  With  the  assent  of  Sir  William 
Windham,  Lord  Bathurst,  and  Lord  Gower,  three  of  tlie  most 
considerable  men  in  the  Tory  party,  he  in  that  year  made  a 
formal  offer  of  co-operation  to  Walpole,  but  that  offer  was  ab- 


344  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

solutely  declined.*  The  Act  of  Attainder,  which  was  still  in 
force,  and  which  could  only  be  annulled  by  Parliament,  deprived 
him  of  his  estates  and  of  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
although  he  succeeded  in  1725  in  regaining  the  former  by  Act 
of  Parliament,  he  was  still  steadily  excluded  from  the  latter. 
The  adroitness  and  splendid  eloquence  with  which  in  his  last 
speech  in  the  House  of  Lords  he  had  met  the  ministerial 
charges  against  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  were  not  soon  forgotten, 
and  the  Whig  leaders  and  the  Whig  Parliaments  were  fully 
resolved  to  paralyse  so  formidable  an  adversary.  The  career 
of  Bolingbroke  is  in  some  respects  one  of  the  most  un- 
fortunate in  English  history.  Gifted,  by  the  confession  of 
all  who  knew  him,  with  abilities  of  the  very  highest  order, 
some  fatal  obstacle  seemed  always  in  his  path.  The  invete- 
rate dilatoriness  of  Oxford,  the  death  of  the  Queen  in  the 
most  critical  moment  of  his  life,  the  incapacity  and  incurable 
bigotry  of  the  Pretender,  frustrated  all  his  efforts,  and  he  found 
himself  in  the  very  zenith  of  his  transcendent  powers  con- 
demned to  political  impotence.  The  first  of  living  orators,  he 
was  shut  out  for  ever  from  Parliament,  which  at  a  time  when 
public  meetings  were  unknown,  was  the  only  theatre  for 
political  eloquence.  A  devoted  Tory,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
bitter  enemy  to  the  Pretender,  he  found  his  party,  which  was 
naturally  the  strongest  in  England,  reduced  to  insignificance 
through  the  imputation  of  Jacobitism.  His  political  writings 
continued  for  many  years  to  agitate  the  country,  and  he  was 
indefatigable  in  his  efforts  to  vmite  the  scattered  fragments  of 
opposition  into  a  new  party,  taking  for  its  principle  the  suppres- 
sion of  corruption  in  Parliament ;  but  his  efforts  met  with  little 
success,  and  a  politician  excluded  from  the  Legislature  could 
never  take  a  foremost  place  in  English  politics.  Once,  indeed, 
after  many  years  of  weary  waiting,  the  favour  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales  seemed  likely  to  break  the  spell  of  misfortutie,  but  the 
sudden  death  of  his  patron  again  clouded  his  prospects  and 
drove  him  in  despair  from  public  life. 

'  Walpole  to  TovvnsLend.  \ugust  3,  1723.     Coxe's  Waljtole  ii.  263-264. 


CH.  ui.  WHIG  SCHISM  OF   1717.  345 

The  Whig  party,  under  these  circumstances  was  almost  un- 
controlled, and  its  strength  was  not  seriously  impaired  by  the 
great  schism  which  broke  out  in  1 7 1 7,  when  Lord  Townshend  was 
dismissed  from  ofi&ce,  when  Walpole,  with  several  less  noted 
Whigs,  resigned,  and  went  into  violent  opposition,  and  when  the 
chief  power  passed  into  the  hands  of  Sunderland  and  Stanhope. 

It  is  the  plan  of  this  book  to  avoid  as  much  as  possible  dis- 
cussing the  personalities  of  history,  except  so  far  as  they  illustrate 
the  political  character  and  tendencies  of  the  time,  and  I  shall 
therefore  content  myself  with  the  most  cursory  reference  to  this 
schism.  It  was  almost  inevitable  that  divisions  should  have 
taken  place.  The  party  was  in  an  overwhelming  majority.  Its 
leaders  were  very  much  upon  a  level ;  for  Walpole,  though  far 
abler  than  his  colleagues,  was  somewhat  inferior  to  several  of 
them  in  the  weight  of  his  political  connections,  and  he  had  not 
yet  attained  the  Parliamentary  ascendency  he  afterwards 
enjoyed.  The  Hanoverian  ministers,  and  a  crowd  of  rapacious 
Hanoverian  favourites  of  the  King,  were  perpetually  endeavouring 
to  make  English  politics  subservient  to  Hanoverian  interests,  and 
to  obtain  places,  pensions,  or  titles  fur  themselves ;  and  another 
serious  element  of  complication  and  intrigue  was  introduced  by 
the  strong  dislike  subsisting  between  the  King  and  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  and  the  extreme  jealousy  which  the  former  entertained  of 
all  statesmen  who  were  supposed  to  have  confidential  intercom'se 
with  the  latter  or  with  his  partisans.  The  bitter  hatred,  both 
personal  and  political,  that  subsisted  between  the  first  three  Hano- 
verian sovereigns  and  their  eldest  sons,  though  it  threw  great  scan- 
dal and  discredit  on  the  royal  family  and  added  largely  to  the  diffi- 
culties of  parliamentary  government.^  was  probably  on  the  whole 
rather  beneficial  to  the  dynasty  than  otherwise,  as  it  led  the  most 
prominent  opponents  of  the  existing  Governments  to  place  their 
chief  hopes  in  the  heir-apparent  to  the  Cro^vn.  The  Hanoverian 
tendencies  of  the  sovereign  were,  however,  an  unmixed  soUrce 
of  weakness.  Tlie  whole  Wliig  party,  though  they  had  gratified 
the  King  by  supporting  the  acquisition  of  Bremen  and  Verden, 
offended  him  by  refusing  to  follow  the  advice  of  his  favourite  Hano- 


346      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.    .  ch.  m. 

verian  minister,  Bernsdorf,  to  commence  immediate  hostilities 
ao-ainstthe  Czar  when  he  invaded  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Mecklenburg 
in  1716.  "NValpole  and  Townshend  soon  became  peculiarly  dis- 
tasteful to  the  Grerman  party  around  the  King,  and  they  were 
accustomed  to  express,  in  no  measured  terms,  their  indignation 
at  the  venality  and  the  intrigues  of  the  Hanoverian  favourites. 
On  the  other  hand,  Sunderland  was  intriguing  eagerly  against 
his  colleao-ues.  The  son  of  the  able  and  corrupt  statesman  who 
played  so  great  a  part  in  the  reigns  of  James  II.  and  of  William, 
and  the  son-in-law  of  Marlborough,  he  had  for  some  time 
shared  the  suspicion  with  which  his  father-in-law  was  re- 
garded by  George  I.  Though  his  introduction  into  the  Cabinet 
durino-  the  last  reign  had  been  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  most 
important  and  most  decisive  victories  of  the  Whig  party,  and 
though  he  had  long  been  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  debaters 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  he  found  himself  excluded,  together  with 
Marlborough,  from  the  list  of  Lords  Justices  to  whom  the  G-o- 
vernment  of  the  country  was  in  part  entrusted  on  the  death  of  the 
Queen.  He  was  appointed  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  which 
removed  him  from  active  political  life ;  and  although  he  afterwards 
succeeded  Wharton  as  Privy  Seal,  he  still  found  the  influence 
and  favour  of  Lord  Townshend  greatly  superior  to  his  own,  and 
he  showed  his  discontent  by  very  rarely  taking  any  part  in  the 
defence  of  the  G-overnment.  At  last,  however,  he  succeeded,  in 
the  summer  of  1716,  during  a  brief  residence  in  Hanover,  in 
obtaining  the  complete  favour  and  confidence  of  the  King. 
Stanhope,  who  was  Secretary  of  State,  and  who  had  been  appointed 
to  that  office  by  Townshend,  threw  himself  into  the  measures 
of  Sunderland.  Some  alleged  delays  of  Townshend  in  negotia- 
ting the  treaty  with  France,  some  alleged  relations  between  him 
and  the  party  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  furnished  pretexts,  and,  after 
passing  through  more  than  one  phase  which  it  is  not  here  necessary 
to  chronicle,  the  disagreement  deepened  into  an  open  breach.  In 
the  new  Government  Sunderland  and  Addison  were  joint  Secre- 
taries of  State,  while  Stanhope  was  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury 
and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  The  conduct  of  Stanhope  in  this 


CH.  m.        -  AVHIG  SCHISil  OF   171 7.  347 

transaction  is  extremely  questionable,  but  he  appears  to  have  beeu 
in  general  a  high-minded  as  well  as  brave  and  liberal  man,  well 
skilled  in  militar}'  matters  and  in  foreign  policy,  and  of  that  frank 
and  straightforward  character  which  often  succeeds  better  in  public 
life,  and  especially  in  English  public  life,  than  the  most  refined 
cunning,'  but  without  much  administrative  or  parliamentary 
ability,  and  wholly  unfit  to  manage  the  finances  of  the  country. 
In  the  following  year,  as  foreign  affairs  became  more  entangled, 
tlie  oflBce  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was  given  to  Aislabie. 
Simderland  became  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  Stanhope, 
together  with  an  earldom,  assumed  the  office  of  Secretary  of 
State,  which  gave  him  the  direction  of  foreign  policy.  In  home 
policy  the  ministry  was  chiefly  distinguished  by  the  repeal  of 
the  Occasional  Conformity  and  Schism  Acts,  by  the  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  carry  the  mischievous  peerage  Bill  which  I  have 
already  described,  and  by  the  privileges  granted  to  the  South 
Sea  Company,  which  speedily  led  to  the  most  terrible  disasters. 
Its  foreign  policy  was  more  brilliant,  for  it  was  during  its  term 
of  office,  and  in  a  great  degree  in  consequence  of  its  measures, 
that  the  ambitious  projects  of  Alberoni  were  defeated.  In 
1720  the  schism  was  partly  healed  by  the  return  of  Walpole 
and  Townshend  to  office,  though  not  to  a  position  in  the  Govern- 
ment at  all  equivalent  to  that  of  which  they  had  been  deprived. 
Townshend  became  President  of  the  Council,  and  Walpole  Pay- 
master of  the  Forces;  and  about  the  same  time,  and  chiefly 
through  the  influence  of  Walpole,  there  was  an  outward  recon- 
ciliation between  the  King  and  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

'  Lady    W.     Montague     writes  :  occasionally  found  that  they  [foreign 

'  Earl    Stanhope  used    to    say  that  ministers]  bad  been  deceived  by  the 

.during  his  ministry  he  always  im-  open  manner  in  which  he  told  them 

posed  on  the   foreign   ministers   by  the  truth,     ^^'hen  he  had  laid  before 

telling  them  the  naked  truth,  which  them  the  exact  state  of  the  case,  and 

as  they  thought  it  impossible  to  come  announced  his  own  intentions,  they 

from  the  mouth  of  a  statesman,  they  went  away  convinced  that  so  skilful 

never  failed  to  write  information  to  and  ex]ierienced  a  diplomatist  could 

their  respective  Courts  directly  con-  not  possiblybe  so  frank  as  he  appeared, 

trary  to  the  assurances  he  gave  them.'  and,  imagining  some  deep  design  in 

Letters  (Lord  Whamcliffes  ed.)  iii,  his  words,  acted  on  their  own  idea  of 

54.     Compare  the  follo^ving  account  what  he  really  meant,  and  so  misled 

of  Lord  Palmerston.     'I  have  heard  their  own  selves.' — Ashley's  Life  of 

him  [Lord  Palmerston]  say  that  he  Pjilmerxton,  ii.  301. 


348  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  iil 

The  divergence  of  feelings  and  interests  between  the  two 
sections  of  the  Cabinet  was,  however,  by  no  means  at  an  end 
when  the  disasters  following  the  South  Sea  Bubble  gave  a  com- 
plete ascendency  to  the  party  of  Walpole.  The  South  Sea 
Company  had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  established  by  Harley,  in 
1711  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  the  national  credit,  which  had 
been  shaken  by  the  downfall  of  the  Whigs  ;  and  although  its 
trade  in  the  Spanish  waters  was  greatly  limited  by  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  and  greatly  interrupted  by  the 
subsequent  hostilities  with  Spain,  the  company  possessed  such 
important  commercial  privileges  that  it  continued  to  be  one 
of  the  most  considerable  and  esteemed  mercantile  corporations 
in  the  country.  The  policy  of  gradually  paying  off  the  debt 
by  incorporating  it  with  the  stock  of  flourishing  companies 
was  in  high  favour,  and  in  1717  an  Act  was  passed  permitting 
the  proprietors  of  certain  short  annuities  amounting  to  about 
1 35.000L,  which  had  still  twenty-three  years  to  run,  to  sub- 
scribe the  residue  of  the  term  into  South  Sea  stock,  at  the  rate 
of  eleven  and  a  half  years'  purchase,  receiving  five  per  cent,  on  the 
principal.  By  this  transaction,  and  by  an  additional  advance 
of  about  544,000^.,  the  capital  of  the  company  was  increased  to 
11,746,844Z.  In  1719,  however,  the  project  was  conceived  of 
enormously  enlarging  its  scope.  The  national  debt  consisted 
partly  of  redeemable  funds,  which  might  be  paid  off  whenever 
money  could  be  found  for  that  purpose,  and  partly  of  irredeem- 
able  ones,  usually  for  about  ninety-nine  years,  which  could  not 
be  paid  without  the  consent  of  the  proprietors.  The  directors 
of  the  company  proposed,  by  purchase  or  subscription,  to  absorb 
both  kinds  of  debt,  and  they  anticipated  that  the  advantages 
they  could  offer  were  such  that  they  could  make  arrangements 
with  the  proprietors  of  the  irredeemable  annuities  for  the  con- 
version of  these  latter  into  redeemable  funds,  that  they  could 
consolidate  the  different  funds  into  a  single  stock,  that  at  the 
end  of  seven  years  they  could  reduce  the  interest  on  the  national 
debt  from  five  to  four  per  cent.,  and  that  by  the  profits  of  a 
company  so  greatly  enlarged  and  so  closely  connected  with  the 


I 


C3i.  lu.  THE  SOUTE  SEA  PEOJECT.  3-19 

Government  they  could  establish  a  large  sinking  fund  for  paying 
off  the  national  debt.  The  prospect  in  the  outset  rested  upon 
very  erroneous  notions  of  the  value  of  the  South  Sea  trade ; 
but  the  competition  between  the  company  and  the  Bank,  which 
looked  upon  the  scheme  with  great  jealousy,  soon  made  it  wholly 
chimerical.  The  South  Sea  directors  resolved,  at  all  costs,  to 
obtain  their  ends,  and  they  accordingly  offered  no  less  than 
7,567,000^.,  if  all  the  debts  were  subscribed,  and  a  propor- 
tionate sum  for  any  part  of  them ;  and  they  also  proposed  to 
pay,  for  the  use  of  the  public,  one  year's  purchase  of  such  of 
the  long  irredeemable  annuities  as  should  not  be  brought  into 
their  capital.  These  terms  were  accepted  by  tlie  Govern- 
ment, and  the  Bill  was  passed  in  April  1720.  It  was  wliolly 
impossible  that  it  should  have  issued  in  anything  but  disaster  ; 
but  all  the  devices  of  the  Stock  Exchange  were  employed  artifi- 
cially to  raise  the  price  of  stock.  For  several  years — and, 
indeed,  ever  since  the  Revolution — a  spirit  of  reckless  specula- 
tion liad  been  spreading  through  England.  Stock-jobbing  had 
become  a  favourite  profession.  Lottery  after  lottery  had  been 
launched  with  success,  and  projects  hardly  less  insane  than 
those  of  the  South  Sea  year  found  numerous  supporters.  The 
scheme  of  Law  had  produced  a  wild  enthusiasm  of  speculation 
in  France,  and  the  contagion  Avas  felt  in  England.  The  South 
Sea  project  was  too  complicated  to  be  generally  understood. 
There  was  no  efficient  organ  of  financial  criticism.  The  Govern- 
ment warmly  supported  the  scheme.  The  large  sum  offered  by 
the  company,  which  made  success  impossible,  stimulated  the 
imaginations  of  the  people,  who  fancied  that  a  privilege  so  dearly 
purchased  must  be  of  inestimable  value,  and  the  complication  of 
credulity  and  dishonesty,  of  ignorance  and  avarice,  threw  Eng- 
land into  what  it  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  term  a  positive 
frenzy.  The  mischief  afiected  all  classes.  Landlords  sold  their 
ancestral  estates  ;  clergymen,  philosophers,  professors,  dissenting 
ministers,  men  of  fashion,  poor  widows,  as  well  as  the  usual  specu- 
lators on  'Change,  flung  all  their  possessions  into  the  new  stock. 
Many   foreigners   followed   the  example,  and   the   Canton  of 


350  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

Berne,  in  its  corporate  capacity,  is  said  to  have  speculated 
laro-ely  in  it.  Among  those  to  whom  large  amounts  of  stock 
had  been  improperly  assigned  were  the  Duchess  of  Kendal 
and  the  Countess  of  Platen  the  two  mistresses  of  the  King. 
Sunderland  the  prime  minister,  Aislabie  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  Charles  Stanhope  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  two 
Craggs.  Among  the  great  crowd  of  honest  speculators  were 
Pope  and  Walpole  and  Gay,  Bingham,  the  learned  historian  of 
Christian  antiquities,  Chandler,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  of 
the  Dissenters.  Eumours  of  intended  cessions  of  gold  mines 
of  Peru,  in  exchange  for  Gibraltar  and  Port  Mahon,  were 
industriously  circulated  and  readily  believed.  Dividends  were 
officially  promised,  which  could  never  be  paid.  The  stock  rose 
to  1,000.  Then  came  the  inevitable  reaction.  The  bubble 
bm-st.  Bankers  and  goldsmiths  who  had  lent  money  on  it  were 
everywhere  failing.  The  stock  fell  faster  than  it  had  risen,  and 
in  a  few  weeks  the  Eldorado  dreams  were  dispelled,  and  disaster 
and  ruin  were  carried  through  all  classes  of  the  nation.* 

It  is  a  striking  instance  of  the  good  fortune  which  at  this 
time  attended  the  Whig  party,  that  the  schism  of  1717  had 
withdrawn  a  certain  proportion  of  its  leaders  from  the  Govern- 
ment, and  consequently  from  all  responsibility  for  the  disaster. 
Had  it  been  otherwise,  the  whole  party  might  have  fallen 
beneath  the  outburst  of  popular  indignation,  and  a  party  which 
was  now  purely  Jacobite  might  have  been  summoned  to  the 
helm.  Walpole,  however,  who  since  his  resignation  had  systema- 
tically opposed  every  measure  of  the  ministry,  had  both  in  Par- 
liament and  by  his  pen  severely  criticised  the  South  Sea  scheme, 
and  although  he  had  been  partially  reconciled  to  the  Govern- 
ment and  had  accepted  office  about  three  months  before  the 
final  crash,  public  opinion  very  justly  held  him  wholly  innocent 
of  the  disaster,  while  his  well-known  financial  ability  made 
men  turn  to  hira  in  the  hovir  of  distress,  as  of  all  statesmen 
the  most  fitted  to  palliate  it.     Lord  Stanhope,  who,  whatever 

•  Sinclair's  Hist,  of  the  Revenue,  i.  488.     Tindal.    Macpherson's  Annals  of 
Commerce,  vol.  iii. 


CH.  III.  ROBERT  WALPOLE,  351 

liis  errors  may  have  been,  showed  at  least  a  perfect  integrity 
during  these  transactions,  died  in  the  J'ebruary  of  1720-21.  and 
was  replaced  as  Secretary  of  State  by  Lord  Townshend.  Aislabie 
was  driven  ignominiously  from  his  position  of  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer.  Sunderland,  the  Prime  ^Minister,  though  ac- 
quitted on  the  charge  of  corruption,  was  obliged,  by  the  stress 
of  public  feeling,  to  resign  his  office.  Walpole  became  both 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  and  Cliancellor  of  tlie  Exchequer  ; 
and  the  death  of  Sunderland,  in  April  1722,  wliich  closed  the 
schism  of  the  Whig  party,  removed  the  last  serious  obstacle 
from  his  path.  In  his  career,  more  than  in  that  of  any  other 
statesman,  the  character  of  Whig  policy  during  the  eighteenth 
century  was  reflected  ;  and  his  influence,  in  a  very  great  degree, 
determined  the  tone  and  character  of  parliamentary  govern- 
ment in  England. 

Born  in  1676,  of  a  Norfolk  family  of  great  antiquity,  mo- 
derate wealth,  and  considerable  political  influence,  Kobert 
Walpole  was  at  first,  as  a  second  son,  intended  for  the  Church, 
was  educated  with  this  object  at  Eton,  where  he  was  the  con- 
temporai-y  and  rival  of  St.  John,  and  liad  already  begun, 
vsdth  some  distinction,  his  career  at  Cambridge  when  the  death 
of  his  elder  brother  induced  his  father  to  withdraw  him  from 
the  University,  and  soon  after  plunged  him  into  politics.  His 
family  possessed  the  control  of  no  less  than  three  seats,  and  he 
entered  Parliament  for  one  of  them  upon  the  death  of  his 
father,  in  1700,  and  at  once  attached  himself  to  the  Whigs. 
He  appeared  from  the  beginning  a  shrewd,  cautious,  laborious, 
and  ambitious  man,  of  .indomitable  courage  and  unflagging 
spirits,  surpassed  by  many  in  the  grace  and  dignity  of  elo- 
quence, but  by  no  one  in  readiness  of  reply,  fertility  of  resource, 
and  aptitude  for  business.  He  became  a  member  of  the  Council 
of  Admiralty  in  1705,  Secretary  of  War  in  1708,  Treasurer  of 
the  Navy  in  1709.  In  1710  he  was  one  of  the  managers  of  the 
Sacheverell  impeachment,  a  measure  of  wliich  ho  privately  dis- 
approved. On  the  downfall  of  tlie  ministry,  lie  took  a  con- 
spicuous and  brilliant  part  in  defending  the  financial  policy  of 


352  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

Godolphin,  who  had  been  accused  by  the  Tory  House  of  Com- 
mons of  gross  extravagance  and  corruption,  and  he  from  this 
period  obtained  the  reputation  of  '  the  best  master  of  figures  of 
any  man  of  his  time.'  In  1712,  the  Tories,  being  in  power, 
marked  their  animosity  against  him  by  expelling  him  from 
Parliament,  on  the  charge  of  corruption,  and  consigning  him 
for  a  few  months  to  the  Tower  ;  but  the  condemnation,  which  was 
a  mere  party  vote,  left  no  stigma  on  his  name,  while  the  species 
of  political  martyrdom  he  underwent  only  served  to  enhance 
his  reputation.  He  soon  returned  to  Parliament,  was  recog- 
nised as  the  most  powerful  supporter  of  the  Protestant  succes- 
sion, rose  again  to  office  upon  the  accession  of  George  I.,  was 
Chairman  of  the  Secret  Committee  for  investigating  the  circum- 
stances of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  became  Paymaster  of  the  Forces 
in  1714  and  First  Lord  of  the  Ti'-asury,  and  at  the  same  time 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  1715.  We  have  just  seen  how 
the  division  of  the  party  in  1717  for  a  time  interrupted  his 
career ;  how,  by  a  singular  good  fortune,  he  was  in  opposition 
when  the  South  Sea  scheme  was  devised  ;  and  how  the  ruin  of  his 
most  formidable  competitors  and  his  own  financial  talents  brought 
him  to  the  foremost  place.  In  the  midst  of  the  panic,  and  ex- 
asperation both  of  Parliament  and  of  the  nation,  he  acted  with 
great  coolness,  courage,  and  good  sense.  He  moderated  the  pro- 
ceedings that  were  taken  against  the  guilty  directors,  and  he 
gradually  restored  public  credit  by  measures  which  met  with  some 
opposition  at  the  time,  and  which,  many  years  after,  became 
the  objects  of  virulent  attacks,^  but  which  had  undoubtedly  the 
effect  of  calming  public  opinion,  and  greatly  mitigating  the 
inevitable  suffering.  His  first  scheme— which  was  originally 
suggested  by  Jacombe,  the  Under-Secretary  of  War — was  a 
division  of  the  stock  between  the  South  Sea  Company,  the 
Bank,  and  the  East  India  Company;  but  another  plan  was 

'  See  the  details  of  these  measures  and  were  probably  quite  unfounded, 

in  Coxe,  Sinclair,  and  Macph  arson.  They  will  be    found   drawn  out  at 

The  attacks  upon  "VValpole's  honesty  great  length  in  Ralph's  Critical  Mst. 

in  this  matter  do  not  appear  to  have  of  the  Administration  of  WaljJole. 
been  made  till  fourteen  years  later, 


CH.  III.  ROBERT  WALPOLE  353 

afterwards  devised.  It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  at  length  into 
its  somewliat  complicated  details.  It  is  suflBcient  to  say  that 
the  whole  sum  of  rather  more  than  7,000,000^.,  which  the  com- 
pany had  engaged  to  pay  the  public,  was  ultimately  remitted, 
that  the  confiscated  estates  of  the  directors  were  employed  in 
the  partial  discharge  of  the  incumbrances  of  the  society,  and 
that  a  division  of  stock  being  made  among  all  the  proprietors, 
it  produced  a  dividend  of  3Sl.  Gs.  8d.  per  cent.  From  this 
time,  for  more  than  twenty  years,  the  ascendency  of  Walpole 
was  complete.  Carteret,  who  made  some  slight  efiforts  to 
rally  the  party,  which  had  been  left  leaderless  by  the  deaths  of 
Stanhope  and  Sunderland,  or  at  least  to  maintain  some  real 
authority  in  the  ministry,  succumbed  in  the  beginning  of  1724, 
and  went  into  a  kind  of  honourable  exile  as  Lord  Lieutenant  of 
Ireland.  The  death  of  the  King  had  long  been  looked  upon  as 
the  event  which  must  necessarily  terminate  the  administration 
of  his  favourite  minister,  for  the  enmity  between  George  I.  and 
his  eldest  son  had  never  in  reality  ceased,  and  the  quarrel 
between  them  broke  out  with  renewed  violence  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  birth  of  the  Prince's  second  son,  in  1721.  The 
Prince  desired  the  Duke  of  York  to  be  godfather  to  the  child. 
The  King  insisted  on  giving  that  post  to  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle. A  strange,  undignified,  but  most  characteristic  scene 
ensued.  On  the  occasion  of  the  christening,  in  the  Princess's 
bedroom,  and  in  presence  of  the  King,  the  Prince,  trembling  with 
passion,  strode  up  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  shaking  his  hand 
at  him  in  menace,  and  shouting,  in  his  broken  English,  '  You 
are  a  rascal ;  but  I  shall  find  you  ! '  The  King  ordered  his  son 
to  be  put  under  arrest,  and  that  night  he  and  his  wife  were 
driven  from  the  palace.  From  this  time  there  was  open  and 
complete  hostility,  not  only  between  the  King  and  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  but  also  between  their  adherents.  No  communication 
was  suffered  to  pass  between  them,  and  Walpole  especially  was 
made  the  subject  of  violent  abuse  by  the  heir  to  the  throne. 
But  the  expectations  of  his  enemies  were  soon  disappointed.  For 
a  few  days,  indeed,  Walpole  was  out  of  office,  the  King  having 
VOL.  I.  .       24 


354  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

placed  the  management  of  affairs  in  the  hands  of  Sir  Spencer 
Compton,  who  had  been  his  treasurer,  and  who  was  at  this  time 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  also  Paymaster  of  the 
Forces.  Sir  Spencer,  however,  was  entirely  incapable  of  occu- 
pying a  foremost  place.  He  found  himself  unable  even  to 
draw  up  a  King's  Speech,  and  in  his  difficulty  he  resorted  to 
Walpole  himself.  The  influence  of  Cardinal  Fleury,  who  urged 
the  danger  to  the  French  alliance  of  a  change  of  Government, 
and  the  warm  support  of  Queen  Caroline,  brought  Walpole. 
back  to  office,  where  he  became  more  absolute  than  before.  Sir 
Spencer  Compton  readily  acquiesced  in  his  own  deposition,  was 
created  Earl  of  Wilmington  in  1728,  and  two  years  later 
became  Privy  Seal,  and  then  President  of  the  Council  in  the 
ministry  of  his  former  rival.  Townshend,  who  alone  could  in 
any  degree  maintain  a  balance  of  power,  was  compelled  to 
resign  in  1730,  and  the  ascendency  of  Walpole  continued 
unbroken  till  1742. 

It  is  the  fault  of  many  historians  and  the  misfortune  of  many 
statesmen  that  the  latter  are  often  j  udged  almost  exclusively  by 
the  measures  they  have  passed,  and  not  at  all  by  the  evils  they 
have  averted.  In  the  case  of  Walpole  this  mode  of  judgment  is 
peculiarly  misleading,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  great  practical 
politicians  have  usually  estimated  him  far  more  highly  than 
men  of  letters.^  The  long  period  of  his  rule  was  signalised  by 
very  few  measures  of  brilliancy  or  enduring  value.  His  faults 
both  as  a  man  and  a  statesman  were  glaring  and  repulsive,  and 
he  never  exercised  either  the  intellectual  fascination  that  belongs 
to  a  great  orator,  or  the  moral  fascination  that  belongs  to  a  great 
character.     He  was  not  a  reformer,  or  a  successful  war  minister, 

'  In  the  present  generation  Walpole  o/FredericTi  the  Great.     It  is  curiously 

has  been  made  the  subject  of  elaborate  instructive  to  compare  their  estimates 

picturesbythree  very  eminent  writers,  of   him   with  that  of   Burke  in  his 

who  differ  as  widely  as  possible  in  Appeal  fromtlie New  to  the  Old  ^Mi\gs, 

their  political  views  and  in  the  char-  and  that  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  a  re- 

acter  of  their  minds— by  Macaulay  mzxkixb\e.^2i^ex\n\\\Q  Stanhope  Mi  scel- 

in  his    EiHay   on    Horace    Walpole  s  lames  (first  series).      Lord  J.  Russell 

Letters ;  Lord  Stanhope  in  his  Hist,  of  has  always  estimated  Walpole  at  least 

England ;  and  Mr.  Carlyle  in  his  Life  as  highly  as  Sir  R.  Peel. 


CiC  m.  PuOBEJRT  WALPOLE.  355 

or  a  profound  and  original  thinker,  or  even  a  tactician  of  great 
enterprise,  and  yet  he  possessed  qualities  which  have  justly- 
placed  him  in  the  foremost  rank  of  politicians.  Finding  Eng- 
land with  a  disputed  succession  and  an  unpopular  sovereign, 
with  a  corrupt. and  factious  Parliament,  and  an  intolerant,  ig- 
norant, and  warlike  people,  he  succeeded  in  giving  it  twenty 
years  of  unbroken  peace  and  uniform  prosperity,  in  establishing 
on  an  impregnable  basis  a  dynasty  which  seemed  tottering  to  its 
fall,  in  rendering,  chiefly  by  the  force  of  his  personal  ascendency, 
the  House  of  Commons  the  most  powerful  body  in  the  State,  in 
moderating  permanently  the  ferocity  of  political  factions  and 
the  intolerance  of  ecclesiastical  legislation.  A  simple  country 
squire,  with  neither  large  fortune  nor  great  connections,  he  won 
the  highest  post  in  politics  from  rivals  of  brilliant  talent,  and  he 
maintained  himself  in  it  for  a  longer  period  than  any  of  his 
predecessors.  Xo  English  minister  had  a  sounder  judgment  in 
emergencies  or  a  greater  skill  in  reading  and  in  managing  men. 
He  obtained  a  complete  ascendency  over  George  I.,  although, 
the  King  speaking  no  English,  and  his  minister  no  French  or 
German,  their  only  commimications  were  in  bad  Latin,  and 
although  the  favourite  mistress  of  the  King  was  his  enemy.  On 
the  death  of  George  I.,  when  the  other  leading  politicians  turned 
at  once  to  Mrs.  Howard,  the  mistress  of  the  new  sovereign,  as 
the  future  source  of  political  power,  "VValpole  at  once  recognised 
the  ability  and  unobtrusive  influence  of  the  Queen,  and  by  her 
friendship  he  was  soon  absolute  at  Coiurt.  Though  George  11. 
came  to  the  throne  with  an  intense  prepossession  against  him,  and 
though  the  King  was  as  fond  of  war  as  his  minister  of  peace, 
he  soon  acquired  the  same  influence  over  the  new  sovereign  as 
he  had  exercised  over  his  father.  His  chancellor.  Lord  Maccles- 
field, excited  a  storm  of  indignation,  and  at  last  an  impeach- 
ment, by  corruptly  selling  masterships  of  Chancery  ;  but  Walpole, 
without  unfairly  abandoning  his  colleague,  met  the  charges 
against  him  with  such  consummate  tact  and  such  judicious 
candour  that  the  affair  rather  strengthened  than  weakened  his 
administration.     He  managed  the  House  of  Commons  with  an 


356  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

admirable  mixture  of  shrewdness  and  frankness,  and  his  facility 
of  access,  his  unfailing  good  Immour,  the  ease  with  which  he 
threw  aside  the  cares  of  office,  his  loud,  ringing  laugh,  and  the 
keen  zest  with  which  he  rode  to  the  hounds,  contributed  perhaps 
as  much  as  his  higher  qualities  to  win  the  affections  of  the 
country  squires,  who  were  still  so  powerful  in  politics.  Par- 
liamentary government,  under  his  auspices,  acquired  a  definite 
form  and  a  regular  action,  and  he  was  a  great  Parliamentary 
leader  at  the  time  when  the  art  of  Parliamentary  leadership  was 
altogether  new. 

As  a  statesman  the  chief  object  of  his  policy  was  to  avoid 
all  violent  concussions  of  opinion.  He  belonged  to  that  class  of 
legislators  who  recognise  fully  that  government  is  an  organic 
thing,  that  all  transitions  to  be  safe  should  be  the  gradual  product 
of  public  opinion,  that  the  great  end  of  statesmanship  is  to  secure 
the  nation's  practical  well-being,  and  allow  its  social  and  in- 
dustrial forces  to  develop  unimpeded,  and  that  a  wise  minister 
will  carefully  avoid  exciting  violent  passions,  provoking  re- 
actions, offending  large  classes,  and  generating  enduring  dis- 
contents. In  many  periods  the  policy  of  evading  or  postponing 
dangerous  questions  has  proved  revolutionary,  or  has,  at  least, 
increased  the  elements  of  agitation.  In  the  time  of  Walpole, 
and  in  the  degree  in  which  he  practised  it,  it  was  eminently 
wise.  England  was  at  this  time  menaced  by  one  of  the  greatest 
calamities  that  can  befall  a  nation — the  e^dl  of  a  disputed  suc- 
cession. Large  classes  were  alienated  from  the  Government. 
Strong  religious  and  political  passions  had  been  aroused  against 
it,  and  there  were  evident  signs  in  many  quarters  of  a  disposi- 
tion to  subordinate  national  to  dynastic  considerations.  In  an 
earlier  period  of  English  history  causes  of  this  nature  had 
deluged  England  with  blood  for  more  than  sixty  years.  Since 
the  time  of  Walpole  very  similar  influences  have  corroded  the 
patriotism  and  divided  the  energies  of  the  leading  nation  on  the 
Continent,  and  have  led  to  the  most  crushing  catastrophe  in  its 
history.  To  the  systematic  moderation  of  AValpole  it  is  in  a 
great  degree  due  that  the  revolutionary  spirit  took  no  root  in 


CH.  111.  CONCILIATORY  POLICY   OF  WALPOLE.  357 

England,  that  the  many  elements  of  disaffection  gradually  su]> 
sided,  and  that  the  landed  gentry  were  firmly  attached  to  the 
new  dynasty.  To  conciliate  this  class  was  a  main  branch  of  his 
policy,  and  if  this  course  was  dictated  by  his  own  party  interests, 
it  is  equally  true  that  it  was  eminently  in  accordance  with  the 
interests  of  the  country.  The  Revolution  was  in  a  great  measm*e 
a  movement  of  the  town  popjulations  in  opposition  to  the  country 
gentry,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  mediatorial  influence  of  the 
aristocracy,  who  were  connected  politically  with  the  first,  and 
socially  with  the  second,  it  might  have  led  to  a  most  dangerous 
antagonism  of  classes.  It  is,  however,  a  remarkable  fact  that 
in  the  very  first  year  of  the  Revolution,  the  Legislature,  while 
gratifying  the  whole  people  by  abolishing  the  unpopular  hearth 
tax,  conferred  a  special  favour  upon  the  landlords  by  a  law 
granting  bounties  for  the  export  of  corn  when  the  home  price 
bad  sunk  to  a  certain  level.'  That  this  measure  was  economi- 
cally erroneous  will  now  hardly  be  disputed,  but  it  probably 
had  a  real  political  value,  and  its  enactment  immediately  after 
the  gTeat  Whig  triumph  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  con- 
ciliatory spirit  that  has  usually  presided  over  English  legisla- 
tion. Still  the  coimtry  gentry  were,  on  the  whole,  hostile  to 
the  change,  and  the  cliief  burden  of  the  additional  taxation  was 
thrown  upon  them.  The  land  tax  of  four  shillings  in  the  pound, 
which  was  carried  in  1692,  was  extremely  unequal  in  its  opera- 
tion, for  it  was  based  on  a  valuation  furnished  chiefly  by  the 
landlords  themselves,  but  in  principle  the  equity  of  the  tax 
was  generally  acknowledged.  By  no  other  form  of  taxation 
could  a  sufficient  sum  be  raised  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  war. 
For  many  generations  extraordinary  emergencies  had  been  met 
by  temporary  taxes  upon  land.  The  prevailing  economical 
notion  that  of  all  forms  of  industry  agriculture  alone  is  really 
productive  helped  to  justify  the  tax,  and  it  also  contributed  to 
redress  a  serious  injustice  which  had  been  done  to  other  classes 
under  Charles  II.  In  that  reign,  as  is  well  known,  the  feudal 
obligations  which  still  rested  upon  land  were  abolished,  and,  as 

'  1  "William  and  Mary,  c.  12. 


358  E5s GLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  hi. 

a  compensation,  excise  duties  were  imposed  on  beer,  ale,  and  other 
liquors,  and  on  licences,  and  were  assigned  in  perpetuity  to  the 
Crown ;,  and  thus  the  burden  which  had  from  time  immemorial 
been  attached  to  one  particular  species  of  property  was  shifted  to 
the  whole  community.' 

Under  these  circumstances  the  land  tax  required  no  justifica- 
tion, and  at  first  met  with  no  serious  opposition.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing, however,  that  its  unprecedented  magnitude,  and  also  the  ne- 
cessity of  continuing  it  in  time  of  peace,  should  have  aggravated 
the  irritation  with  which,  on  other  grounds,  the  country  gentry 
regarded  the  Eevolution.  Their  political  alienation  was,  perhaps, 
the  most  serious  danger  of  the  new  Government.  It  was 
entirely  impossible  that  the  reigning  family  should  be  firmly 
established,  and  that  constitutional  Parliamentary  government 
should  continue  if  the  landed  gentry  were  estranged  from  the 
existing  order  of  things;  and  their  natural  sympathies  were 
strongly  Tory,  while  Grovernment,  in  the  first  two  Hanoverian 
reigns,  was  exclusively  Whig.  The  hatred  the  ordinary  country 
gentlemen  felt  towards  foreigners,  towards  traders,  and  towards 
Dissenters  was  hardly  less  strong  than  that  dread  of  Popery 
which  had  induced  them  reluctantly  to  acquiesce  in  the  Eevolu- 
tion. It  was  impossible,  however,  that  they  should  long  look 
upon  Walpole  as  an  enemy  to  their  order  or  their  interests.  By 
birth  and  position  he  belonged  to  their  class.  He  was  so  imbued 
with  their  tastes  that,  as  Lord  Hardwicke  assures  us,  he  always 
opened  the  letters  of  his  gamekeeper  before  any  others,  even 
before  the  letters  from  the  King.^  The  Saturday  holiday  of 
Parliament  still  remains  as  a  memorial  of  his  country  habits, 
for,  as  the  Speaker  Onslow  informs  us,  it  was  originally  instituted 
in  order  that  Walpole  might  once  a  week  gratify  his  passion 
for  hunting.  In  the  contest  upon  the  Peerage  Bill,  which 
beyond  most  questions  touched  the  interests  of  the  country 
gentry,  Walpole  was  their  special  champion.  He  carefully 
humoured  their  prejudices,  and  he  steadily  laboured,  sometimes 

'  See  McCuUoch  on  Taxation,  p.  58.     Sinclair  on  the  lievenue,  i.  300. 
*  Walj)oliana. 


CH.  III.  CONCILIATORY  POLICY   OF  WALPOLE.  359 

by  means  that  were  censurable  or  unpopular,  to  reduce  the 
land  tax,  which  was  their  greatest  burden.  In  1731  and  1732 
it  sank  for  the  first  time  since  the  Eevolution  to  one  shilling  in 
the  pound.  To  abolish  it  was  the  main  object  of  his  excise 
scheme.  To  keep  it  down  he  reimposed,  in  1732,  the  salt  tax, 
which  had  been  abolished  two  years  before,  and  in  the  following 
year  withdrew  500,000/.  from  the  Sinking  Fund,  which  had  been 
provided  for  the  payment  of  the  National  Debt. 

I  have  already  shown  how  a  similar  spirit  of  caution  and 
conciliation  pervaded  his  religious  policy,  how  he  abstained 
from  adopting  any  course  which  could  arouse  the  dormant  in- 
tolerance of  the  people,  and  contented  himself  by  a  mild 
administration  of  existing  laws,  by  Latitudinarian  Church 
appointments,  and,  by  passing  Acts  of  indemnity,  with  securing 
a  large  amount  of  practical  liberty.  He  did  nothing  to  relieve 
the  Catholics  at  home,  but  his  Protestantism,  like  all  his  other 
sentiments,  was  devoid  of  fanaticism,  and  it  did  not  prevent  him 
from  co-operating  cordially  with  Cardinal  Fleury,  who  directed 
affairs  in  France,  from  holding  frequent  unoflScial  communi- 
cations with  Eome,  and  from  acting  with  his  usual  good-nature 
towards  individuals  of  the  creed.  The  kind  alacrity  with  which 
he  assisted  the  promotion  of  an  English  Catholic  priest  at 
Avignon,  who  was  recommended  to  him  by  Pope,  is  said  to  have 
given  rise  to  those  beautiful  lines  in  which  the  great  Catholic 
poet  has  traced  his  portrait.' 

A  policy  such  as  I  have  described  is  not  much  fitted  to  strike 
the  imagination,  but  it  was  well  suited  to  a  period  of  disputed 
succession,  and  to   the  genius  of  a  nation  which  has  usually 

"    '  Seen  him  I  have ;  but  in  his  happier  hour 
Of  social  pleasure  ill  exchanged  for  power ; 
Seen  him  imcumbered  with  the  venal  tribe, 
Smile  without  art,  and  win  without  a  bribe. 
Would  he  oblige  me  ?   Let  me  only  find 
He  does  not  think  me  what  he  thinks  mankind.' 

Ujnlogiies  to  the  Satires. 
The  character  will  appear  very  favour-       Literaiij  Anecdotes  of  the  Eighteenth 
able  when   we  remember  that  Pope       Century,    v.    p.    C.50.      Chesterfield  s 
was  the  most  intimate  friend  of  Wal-       Miscellaneous  Works,  appendix  p.  41. 
pole's  bitterest  enemies.  See  Nichols "s 


360  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

preferred  cautious  to  brilliant  statesmen,  and  which  owes  to 
this  preference  no  small  part  of  its  political  well-being.  It 
may  be  added  that  there  have  been  very  few  ministers  whose 
more  important  judgments  have  been  so  imiformly  ratified 
by  posterity.  The  highest  English  interest  of  his  time  was 
probably  the  maintenance  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  and  of 
the  constitutional  maxims  of  government  it  represented  ;  and 
to  Walpole  more  than  to  any  other  single  man  that  maintenance 
was  due.  The  greatest  party  blunder  made  during  his  time  was 
unquestionably  the  impeachment  of  Sacheverell,  and  the  most 
dangerous  constitutional  innovation  was  the  Peerage  Bill  of 
Stanhope,  but  Walpole  endeavoured  privately  to  prevent  the 
first,  and  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  rejection  of  the  second. 
One  of  the  happiest  instances  of  the  policy  of  Chatham  was  the 
manner  in  which  he  allayed  the  disloyalty  of  the  Scotch,  by 
appealing  to  their  national  and  military  pride,  and  forming  out 
of  their  clans  national  regiments  ;  but  a  precisely  similar  policy 
had  been  proposed  by  Duncan  Forbes,  in  1738,  and  warmly  sup- 
ported by  Walpole,  though  the  opposition  of  his  colleagues,  and 
the  outcry  that  was  raised  about  standing  armies,  prevented  its 
realisation.^  The  calamities  of  the  next  period  of  English  history 
were  mainly  due  to  the  disastrous  attempt  to  raise  a  revenue  by 
the  taxation  of  America;  but  this  plan  had,  in  1739,  been  sug- 
gested to  Walpole,  who  emphatically  rejected  it,  adding,  with 
admirable  wisdom,  that  it  had  always  been  the  object  of  his  ad- 
ministration to  encourage  to  the  highest  point  the  commercial 
prosperity  of  the  colonies,  that  the  more  that  prosperity  was 
augmented,  the  greater  would  be  the  demand  for  English  pro- 
ducts, and  that  it  was  in  this  manner  that  the  colonies  should 
be  a  source  of  wealth  to  the  mother  country .^  The  first  slight 
relaxation  of  the  commercial  restraints  which  excluded  the 
colonies  from  intercourse  with  all  foreign  countries  was  due  to 
Walpole,  who  carried,  in  1730,  an  Act  enabling  Carolina  and 
Georgia  to  send  their  rice  direct  in  British  vessels,  manned  by 
British  sailors,  to  any  part  of  Europe  south  of  Cape  Finisterre ; 

•  Culloden  Papers,  p.  sxxi,  ^  Annual  Register,  1765,  p.  25. 


en.  m.  SOUNDNESS   OF  JUDGMENT.  361 

and  this  measure,  restricted  as  it  was,  had  the  eflfect  of  greatly 
developing  the  colonial  plantations,  and  making  their  produce 
a  successful  rival  to  Egyptian  rice,  in  the  chief  markets  of 
Europe  ?  ' 

On  three  occasions  Walpole  may  be  said  to  have  been 
condemned  by  the  almost  unanimous  voice  of  the  people.  He 
had  warned  Parliament  of  some  at  least  of  the  dangers  of  the 
South  Sea  scheme.  His  warning  was  disregarded.  The  whole 
nation  rushed  with  a  frantic  excitement  into  speculation,  and,  in 
the  fearful  calamities  that  ensued,  Walpole  was  called  in  as  the 
one  man  who  could  in  some  degree  remedy  the  evil.  His 
scheme  of  excise  was  made  the  object  of  absurd  and  factious 
misrepresentation.  The  name  of  excise  was  still  associated  in 
the  popular  mind  with  the  hated  memory  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, which  had  borrowed  the  impost  from  the  Dutch,  and  had 
first  introduced  it  into  England.  The  increase  in  the  nmnber 
of  revenue  ofl&cers  that  would  be  required — which  was  shown  to 
be  utterly  insignificant — was  represented  as  likely  to  give  the 
Crown  an  overwhelming  influence  at  elections.  The  scheme, 
which  was  limited  to  two  or  three  articles  in  which  gross  frauds 
in  the  revenue  had  been  detected,  was  described  as  a  precursor 
to  a  general  system  of  excise — a  system,  it  was  added,  which 
could  only  be  maintained  by  the  employment  of  innumerable 
spies,  who  would  penetrate  into  every  household,  and  distmb 
the  peace  of  every  family.  Walpole  yielded  to  the  clamour, 
but  Pitt,  who  was  one  of  the  bitterest  and  one  of  the  most 
honest  of  his  opponents,  long  afterwards  confessed  his  belief 
that  the  scheme  was  an  eminently  wise  one,'^  and  there  is 
now  scarcely  an  historian  who  does  not  share  the  opinion. 
The  chief  proximate  cause  of  the  downfall  of  "SValpole  was 
his  reluctance  to  enter  into  that  war  with  Spain  which  was 
advocated  by  all  the.  leaders  of  the  Opposition,  and  which  at  last 
became  necessary,  from  the  popular  clamour  they  aroused. 
Burke,  in  one  of  his  latest  works,  took  the  occasion  of  expressing 
his  deep  sense  both  of  the  injustice  and  the  impolicy  of  this 
'  Coxe's  Waljjole,  i.  326-327.  *  See  Coxe"s  Walpole,  i.  748. 


362      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.     ch.  in, 

war,  and  he  added  that  it  had  been  his  lot  some  years  after  to 
converse  with  many  of  the  principal  politicians  who  had  raised 
the  clamour  that  produced  it,  and  that  '  none  "of  them,  no  not 
one,  did  in  the  least  defend  the  measure,  or  attempt  to  justify 
their  conduct,  which  they  as  freely  condemned  as  they  would 
have  done  in  commenting  upon  any  proceeding  in  history  in 
whicli  they  were  wholly  uuconcerned.' ' 

The  special  field  in  which  the  ability  of  Walpole  was  most 
fitted  to  shine,  was  undoubtedly  finance,  and  there  was  probably 
no  exaggeration  in  the  eulogy  of  a  very  able  contemporary 
writer ,2  who  pronounced  him  to  be  '  the  best  commercial  minister 
this  country  ever  produced.'  I  have  already  adverted  to  the 
singularly  enlightened  views  he  had  expressed  about  the  colonial 
trade,  to  the  prescience  with  which  he  warned  his  countrymen  of 
the  calamities  that  would  ensue  from  the  South  Sea  scheme, 
and  to  the  almost  unanimous  verdict  of  posterity  in  favour  of 
his  excise  scheme.  I  may  add  that  he  succeeded  iu  a  singu- 
larly short  time,  and  at  the  expense  of  comparatively  slight 
loss  to  the  country,  in  restoring  public  credit  after  the  collapse 
of  the  South  Sea  Company;  that  he  was  one  of  the  first  English 
statesmen  who  took  efficient  measures  for  the  reduction  of  the 
National  Debt;  that  he  laid  the  foundation  of  the  free-trade 
policy  of  the  present  century,  by  abolishing  in  a  single  year  the 
duties  on  106  articles  of  export,  and  on  38  articles  of  import ; 
that  the  system  of  warehousing,  or  admitting  as  a  temporary 
deposit,  foreign  goods,  free  of  duty,  to  await  exportation,  which  had 
been  largely  practised  by  the  Dutch  in  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  which  was  one  of  the  happiest  measures  of 
Huskisson  in  the  nineteenth  century,  had  been  part  of  the  excise 
scheme  of  Walpole ;  that  by  an  alteration  in  the  manner  of  borrow- 
ing by  means  of  Exchequer  Bills  he  saved  the  country  the  pay- 
ment of  a  large  amount  of  annual  interest,  and  that  no  single 
featm-e  of  his  speeches  appeared  to  his  contemporaries  so  ad- 
mirable as  the  unfailing  lucidity  with  which  he  treated  the  most 
intricate  questions  of  finance.     In  all  matters  that  wei-e  not  con- 

'  Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace.  ^  Tucker. 


CH.  III.  FINANCIAL  POLICY.  363 

nected  with  the  maintenance  of  his  Parliamentary  position  he  was 
conspicuously  parsimonious  of  public  money,  and  his  fertility  of 
financial  resource  extorted  from  George  I.  the  emphatic  decla- 
ration that  '  Walpole  could  make  gold  from  nothing,'  that  '  he 
never  had  his  equal  in  business.'     The  establishments  were  kept 
low.     Credit  was  fully  restored,  and  under  the  influence  of  a 
soimd  and  pacific  policy,  and  in  the  absence  of  meddling  com- 
mercial laws,  the  wealth  of  the  country  rapidly  increased.     The 
abundance  of  money  was  so  great  that  even  the  three-per-cents, 
were  in  1737  at  a  premium.     The  average  price  of  land  rose  in 
a  few  years  from  20  or  21  to  25,  26  or  even  27  years'  purchase. 
The  tonnage  of  British  shipping  was  augmented  in  the  six  years 
that  preceded  1729  by  no  less  than  238,000  tons,     Particidar 
taxes  were  appropriated  to  the  payment  of  the  interest  of  the 
debt,  and  it  was  provided  that  when  they  were  more  than  suffi- 
cient for  the  purpose,  the  sm-plus  was  to  be  paid  into  a  sinking 
fund  for  the  liquidation  of  the  principal.     Partly  by  the  in- 
crease of  the  produce  of  these  taxes,  and  partly  by  reductions  of 
the  interest  of  the  debt,  the  sum  annually  paid  into  this  sinking 
fund  for  some  years  rapidly  increased.     In  1717  it  amounted 
to  323,427^.,    in   1724  to  653,000^.,    in  1738  to  1,231,127L 
The  value  of  the  imports  rose  between  1708  and  1730  from 
4,698,663^.  to  7,780,019/.,  that  of  the  exports  from  6,969,089^ 
to   11,974,135/.     A  corresponding  progress  was  shown  in  the 
growth  of  the  manufacturing  towns,  in  the  extension  of  almost 
every  prominent  form  of  industry,  in  the  improved  condition  of 
the  poorer  classes  of  the  community.   The  price  of  wheat  in  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  steadily  fell.     During  the 
fifty  years  that  preceded  1700  the  average  price  per  quarter  was 
3/.  lis.     Dining  the  forty  years  that  preceded  1750  it  had  sunk 
to  \L  16s.,  but  at  the  same  time  the  price  of  labour  underwent 
no  corresponding  diminution,  and  during  the  latter  part  of  that 
time  it  had  considerably  risen.' 

'  ilacpherson's    Annals    of    Com-  'n.a.Ua.m''sConsf,  Hist.  in.  p.  302.  Coxe's 

merce,  iii.  pp.  147,  148.     Malthus,  On  Walpole,  c.    xlvii.     Mill's    Hist,    of 

Pojndation,  book  iii.  c.  x.     Chalmers'  Jiritxsk  India,  bk.  iv.  c.  i.    Sinclair's 

Estimate    (ed.    1794),   pp.    107,    108.  Ilist.  of  the  Revenue. 
Craik's  Hist,  of  Commerce,  ii.  201-203, 


364  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

The  merits  of  \Yalpole  in  this  respect  were  very  great,  for 
in  the  eyes  of  most  impartial  observers  there  was  much  in  the 
financial  condition  of  the  country  since  the  Eevolution  that  was 
extremely  serious.  The  expenses  of  the  administration  had 
increased,  and  the  National  Debt,  which  at  the  time  of  the 
Eevolution  was  only  648,000L,  amounted  on  the  death  of 
William  to  more  than  sixteen  millions,  and  on  the  accession  of 
Georo-e  I.  to  more  than  fifty-four  millions.  Accustomed  as  we 
are  to  the  far  more  gigantic  burden  of  our  present  debt,  it  is 
perhaps  difficult  for  us  to  estimate  the  consternation  with  which 
this  phenomenon  was  regarded,  and  the  National  Debt  is  histori- 
cally so  closely  connected  with  the  Eevolution  that  Whig  his- 
torians have  shown  a  strong  tendency  to  depreciate  its  import- 
ance. They  have  urged  with  truth  that  the  existence  of  some 
debt  was  inevitable,  that  Italy,  Holland,  France,  and  Spain 
had  already  taken  considerable  steps  in  the  same  direction,  that 
the  increased  perfection  of  military  organisation,  by  adding 
largely  to  the  cost  of  war,  had  made  it  eminently  advisable  to 
spread  the  expense  of  a  great  struggle  over  several  years  of 
peace,  that  in  1692,  when  the  funded  system  began,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  have  raised  the  war  taxes  Avithin  the  year 
without  seriously  crippling  industry  and  shaking  the  Govern- 
ment, and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  abundance  of  money 
seeking  investment  made  a  loan  peculiarly  advisable.  They 
have  added,  too,  that  the  evils  of  a  national  debt  have  been  greatly 
exaggerated,  and  that  its  advantages  are  by  no  means  incon- 
siderable. It  is  certain,  notwithstanding  the  prognostications  of 
innumerable  economists,  that  the  material  prosperity  of  England 
has  steadily  advanced  in  spite  of  its  debt.  It  is  certain  that 
although  a  debt  which  a  nation  owes  to  itself  is  economically  an 
evil,  it  is  an  evil  of  a  very  different  magnitude  from  a  debt 
owed  to  a  foreign  nation.  There  is  also  a  real  and  a  considerable 
advantage  in  the  possession  of  a  secure  and  easy  mode  of  investing 
money  accessible  to  all  classes,  universally  known,  and  furnishing 
the  utmost  facilities  for  transfer.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that 
a  financial  system  which  gives  a  large  proportion  of  the  people 


CH.  HI.  THE  NATIONAL   DEBT.  365 

a  direct  pecuniary  interest  in  the  stability  of  the  Government  is 
a  great  pledge  of  order  and  a  firm  bond  of  national  cohesion. 

But,  admitting  these  arguments,  the  evils  of  national  debts, 
both  moral   and  economical,  are  very  serious.     Economically 
they    almost   invariably  imply   an  enormous  waste   of  capital 
with  a  proportionate  injury  to  the  working  classes.     The  prin- 
cipal of  the  debt  is  usually  spent  unproductively  by  the  Govern- 
ment as  revenue,  and  it  is  drawn  in  a  large  part  from  capital 
which  would  have  been  otherwise  productively  employed  and  which 
forms  part  of  the  wage  fund  of  the  nation.     It  is  a  transparent 
though  common  fallacy  to  suppose  that  it  reproduces  itself  in 
interest.     A  moment's  reflection  is  sufiBcient  to  show  that,  except 
in  the  rare  cases  in  which  the  borrowed  money  is  employed  in 
some  reproductive  work,  no  such  interest  accrues,  and  that  the 
annual  sum  which  the  Government  engages  to  pay  to  its  credi- 
tors is  derived  from  other  sources,  from  a  general  taxation  levied 
on  funds  part  of  which,  at  least,  would  otherwise  have  been  pro- 
ductively employed.     And  the  economical  evil  of  this  dissipa- 
tion  of  capital  is  greatly  aggravated  by  moral  causes.     Many 
forms  of  lavish   unproductive  expenditure,  and  especially  the 
splendours  and  the  excitements  of  war,  are  naturally  so  popular 
that  any  minister  or  sovereign  whose  position  is  insecure  or  whose 
character  is  ambitious  is  almost  irresistibly  tempted  to  resort  to 
them  if  there  is  no  strong  counteracting  influence.     The  natural 
restraint  upon  these  extravagances  is  the  necessity  of  raising  by 
taxation  the  whole  sum  that  is  required.     The  sacrifice  and  dis- 
turbance caused  by  such  an  increase  of  taxation  arouse  a  feeling 
which  at  once  checks  the  progress  of  the  evil.     But  by  the 
funding    system    this    invaluable    restraint   is  almost   wholly 
removed.     The  money   that  is   required    is    borrowed.       The 
increase  of  taxation  that  is  necessary  to  pay  the  mere  interest 
appears  trifling  and  almost  imperceptible.     The  process  which 
should  be   resorted   to,  only    in    extreme  emergencies  of  the 
State,    is  found  so    easy  and    popular  that  it  is   constantly 
repeated.     The  nation,  losing   all  habit  of  financial   sacrifice, 
borrows  in  every  moment  of  difficulty,  contents  itself  in  time 


366  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

of  prosperity  with  simply  paying  the  interest  of  the  debt,  and 
makes  no  serious  eflfort  to  reduce  the  principal.  Thus  by 
stealthy  and  insidious  steps  the  evil  creeps  on  till  the  national 
prosperity  and  industry  are  heavily  mortgaged,  and  the  conse- 
quences of  the  crimes  and  blunders  of  one  generation  are 
entailed  upon  the  remotest  posterity.  In  ancient  times,  the 
traces  of  the  most  horrible  war  were  soon  effaced.  In  a  few 
years  the  misery  and  desolation  that  followed  it  were  for- 
gotten. The  waste  of  national  wealth  which  might  appear  a 
more  permanent  calamity  was  so  immediately  and  acutely  felt 
that  it  at  once  produced  an  increase  of  energy  and  self-sacrifice  to 
replace  it,  and  thus  the  effects  of  political  errors  usually  disap- 
peared almost  with  those  who  perpetrated  them.  In  modern 
times  the  chief  expenditure  of  a  war  is  raised  by  a  loan,  which 
is  often  drawn  from  the  capital  that  would  otherwise  have 
given  employment  to  the  poor,  which  rarely  or  never  produces 
in  the  community  any  considerable  increase  of  economy,  and 
which  always  perpetuates  the  calamity  of  war  by  throwing  its 
accumulated  burdens  upon  a  distant  posterity.  Every  English 
household  is  now  suffering  from  the  American  policy  of  North 
and  the  French  policy  of  Pitt,  and  the  political  errors  of  the 
Second  Empire  will  be  felt  by  Frenchmen  as  a  present  evil  long 
after  the  children  and  grandchildren  of  those  who  perpetrated 
them  are  in  their  graves. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  the  sinister  predictions  of  such  econo- 
mists as  Hume  and  Adam  Smith,  though  they  have  been  falsified 
by  the  result,  rested  upon  any  fundamental  error  of  principle. 
If  the  National  Debt  before  the  American  War  did  not  arrest, 
though  it  undoubtedly  retarded,  the  material  progress  of  England, 
this  was  merely  because  the  resources  of  the  country  were  so  large 
and  its  circumstances  and  situation  so  favourable  that  the 
normal  increase  of  wealth  was  considerably  greater  than  the 
increase  of  the  burden.  If  the  debts  that  were  contracted 
during  the  great  American  and  French  Wars  did  not  ruin  the 
country  it  was  owing  to  a  series  of  events  which  no  human 
sagacity  could  have  predicted.     The  great  mechanical  inventions 


OH.  lit.  THE  NATIONAL   DEBT.  367 

of  Ilargreaves,  Arkwright,  Crompton,  Watt,  and  Steplienson, 
followed  by  a  peace  of  almost  unexampled  duration,  and  by  a 
policy  of  free  trade,  have  produced  an  increase  of  wealth  that 
is  wholly  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  mankind  ;  while  Cali- 
forniau  and  Australian  gold,  by  depreciating  the  value  of  money, 
have  considerably  lightened  the  burden  of  the  debt,  at  the  cost 
of  great  loss  and  injury  to  the  fundholder.  It  remains,  however, 
as  true  as  ever  that  European  nations  have  never  in  time  of 
peace  paid  off  their  debts  with  a  rapidity  at  all  corresponding  to 
that  with  which  they  accumulated  them  in  time  of  war  ;  that  the 
increased  taxation  necessitated  by  national  debts  has  led,  and 
may  easily  lead,  to  national  bankruptcy ;  and  that  long  before  it 
reaches  this  point,  it  produces  distress,  difficulty,  and  privation, 
and  seriously  endangers  the  security  of  the  State.  It  is  one  of 
the  worst  features  of  national  debts  that  they  deprive  nations 
of  the  power  of  regulating  their  expenditure  by  their  resources. 
A  permanent  taxation,  which  may  be  easily  borne  in  time  of 
great  commercial  prosperity,  may  become  crushing  if  the  course 
of  commerce  takes  another  channel,  and  if  the  income  of  the 
nation  is  proportionately  reduced.  History  shows  how  easily 
this  may  happen.  A  war,  a  new  invention,  the  exhaustion  of 
some  essential  element  of  national  industry,  the  progress  of  a 
rival,  or  a  change  in  the  value  or  conditions  of  labour,  may 
speedily  turn  the  stream  of  wealth,  while  the  burden  of  debt 
remains.  And,  indeed,  this  burden  itself  is  one  of  the  most 
likely  causes  of  such  a  change.  When  other  things  are  equal, 
the  least  indebted  nation  will  always  have  the  advantage  in 
industrial  competition  ;  for  the  heavy  taxation  necessitated  by 
debts  at  once  raises  prices  and  reduces  profits,  and  thus  causes  the 
"  emigration  both  of  capital  and  labour. 

These  considerations  may  serve  in  some  degree  to  justify 
the  great  dread  with  which  the  National  Debt  was  regarded  by 
the  wisest  political  observers  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Their 
judgments  were  not  formed  merely  by  theory.  France  actually 
proclaimed  herself  bankrupt  in  1715  and  1769.  Holland  had 
already  entered  into  a  period  of  commercial  decadence,  which 


368  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.         ch.  m. 

was  largely  due  to  the  emigration  of  capital  resulting  from  the 
excessive  taxation  rendered  necessary  by  her  debt.  The  whole 
sum  raised  by  taxation  in  England  at  the  time  of  the  Eevolution 
but  slightly  exceeded  two  millions,  and  it  was  raised  with  diffi- 
culty, and  in  the  hard  years  that  followed  that  event  the  produce 
of  the  taxes  considerably  diminished.'  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  the  growth  of  the  debt  should  have  appeared 
bewildering  in  its  rapidity,  and  that  very  erroneous  estimates 
should  have  been  formed  of  the  capabilities  of  the  nation.  Thus 
Davenant,  the  chief  commercial  writer  under  William  and  Anne, 
predicted  in  1699  that  England  could  never  flourish  in  trade 
and  manufactures  till  the  greater  part  of  the  National  Debt  was 
liquidated,  and  the  annual  taxation  of  the  country  reduced  to 
about  2,300,000^.  '  Unless  this  can  be  compassed,'  he  added, 
'  we  shall  languish  and  decay  every  year.  Our  gold  and  silver 
will  be  carried  off  by  degrees ;  rents  will  fall,  the  purchase  of 
land  will  decrease ;  wool  will  sink  in  its  price ;  our  stock  of 
shipping  will  be  diminished ;  farmhouses  will  go  to  ruin ; 
industry  will  decay,  and  we  shall  have  upon  us  all  the  visible 
marks  of  a  declining  people.'  ^  These  figures,  however,  were 
speedily  passed.  Carteret  complained  bitterly  in  1738  that  the 
estimates  had  now  risen  to  no  less  than  six  millions.^  Smollett 
considered  the  sum  of  ten  millions  which  was  raised  in  1743 
*  enormous.'  *  Bolingbroke  noted  that  the  Parliamentary  aids 
from  the  year  1740  exclusively,  to  the  year  1748  inclusively, 
amounted  to  about  55^  millions,  '  a  sum,'  he  added, '  that  will  ap- 
pear incredible  to  future  generations.'  ^  The  most  acute  observers 
imagined  that  the  nation  had  now  all  but  touched  the  extreme 
limits  of  her  resources.  As  early  as  1735  Lord  Hervey  wrote, 
'  I  do  not  see  how  it  would  be  possible  on  any  exigence,  or  for 
the  support  of  the  most  necessary  war,  for  England  to  raise  above 
one  million  a  year  more  than  it  now  raises.'  ^     '  The  Craftsman,' 

'  See     Sinclair's     JTist.     of     the  *  Hist,  of  England,  iii.  120. 

Revenue,  i.  406-407.  *  Itcfiectwns  on  the  Present  State 

^  Davenant's  WorTisiyilV),  ii.  283.  of  the  Nation. 

'  Smollett's  Hist,  of  England,  iii.  *  Hervey's  Memoirs,  i.  487. 

U. 


en.  in.  THE   NATION.\X   DEBT.  369 

the  great  organ  of  Bolingbroke  and  Piilteney,  descril)ing  tlie 
condition  of  the  country  in  173G,  says,  'The  vast  load  of  debt 
under  wliich  the  nation  still  groans  is  the  true  source  of  all  these 
calamities  and  gloomy  prospects  of  which  we  have  so  much 
reason  to  complain.  To  this  has  been  owing  that  multiplicity 
of  burthensome  taxes  which  have  more  than  doubled  the  price 
of  the  common  necessaries  of  life  Avithin  a  few  years  past,  and 
thereby  distressed  the  poor  labourer  and  manufactiu-er,  disabled 
the  farmer  to  pay  his  rent,  and  put  even  gentlemen  of  plentiful 
estates  iinder  the  greatest  difficulties  to  make  a  tolerable  pro- 
vision for  their  families.' '  Walpole  himself  declared  that  the 
country  could  not  stand  imder  a  debt  exceeding  a  hundred 
millions.^  Hume  maintained  that  the  ruinous  effect  of  the 
debt  already  threatened  the  very  existence  of  the  nation,'  and 
Chesterfield,  only  a  few  months  before  the  great  ministry  of 
Pitt,  predicted  that  in  the  next  year  the  army  must  be  unpaid 
or  reduced,  as  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  country  a  second 
time  to  raise  twelve  millions.^ 

By  far  the  larger  part  of  the  existing  National  Debt  was 
created  by  Tory  Governments,  and  in  piu'suance  of  a  Tory 
policy.  In  the  time  of  Walpole,  however,  the  debt  was  looked 
upon  as  distinctively  Whig,  the  special  creation  of  the  Eevolu- 
tion.  And  this  view,  though  not  rigidly  accurate,  contained  a 
very  large  measure  of  truth.  The  events  of  the  Eevolution 
drew  England  into  a  series  of  great  land  wars  upon  the  Con- 
tinent, which  made  an  unprecedented  militaiy  expenditure 
inevitable,  while  the  position  of  the  new  Government  was  so 
insecure  that  it  did  not  venture  largely  to  increase  taxation. 
The  land  tax,  which  was  by  far  the  most  important  addition  made 
to  the  revenue  under  William  III.,  was  in  a  great  degree  merely 
a  compensation  for  the  abolition  of  the  hearth  tax.  Besides 
this,  the  insecurity  of  the  new  establishment  raised  enormously 

'  No.  502.  too,  his  essay  on  I'uhlie  Credit,  and 

*  Horace    Walpole's    Memoirs    of  the  curious  note  ajjpended  to  it. 
George  III.,  vol.  i.  p.  103.  ^  June  175G.   Miscellaneous  Worlis, 

*  Hist,  of  England,  c.  xxi.     iSee,  iv.  1S5. 


VOL.    I. 


25 


O/' 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.    ch.  m. 


the  rate  of  interest  on  (xovernrment  loans. ^     It  rendered  neces- 
sary a  considerable  standing  army  in  time  of  peace,  and  it  was  a 
temptation  to  Whig-  Governments  to  strengthen  their  position 
])y  multiplying  a  class  of  persons  who  were  bound  to  the  new 
dynasty  by  pecuniary  ties.     In  the  reigns  of  William  and  of  Anne, 
money  was  chiefly  raised  by  anticipating  the  produce  of  certain 
taxes  for  a  limited  number  of  years,  by  annuities  granted  on  very 
extravagant  conditions  for  a  term  of  years  or  for  lives,  and  also, 
from  the  great  mercantile  corporations  in  return  for  commercial 
privileges.     After  the  accession  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty  most 
loans  took  the  form  of  perpetual  annuities.   The  attempts  which 
Y?ere  made  to  diminish  the  burden  of  the  debt  consisted  chiefly 
in  the  reduction  of  its  interest.     This  policy  appears  to  have 
been  first  pursued  in  Holland.     The  Dutch  debt  bore  interest  of 
five  per  cent.,  and  when  in  1655  it  was  found  possible  for  the 
State  to   obtain  money  at  four  per  cent,  the  creditors  were 
offered  the  alternative  of  the  reduction  of  the  interest  or  the 
payment  of  the  principal.     The  former  was  readily  accepted. 
An  annual  saving  of  1,400,000  guilders  was  thus  made,  and  it 
was  applied  to  the  gradual  payment  of  the  principal  of  the  debt.^ 
In  1685  Pope  Innocent  XI.,  in  a  similar  manner,  reduced  the 
interest  on  the  Eoman  debt  from  four  to  three  per  cent.^    I  have 
already  noticed  the  arrangement  which  Godolphin  made  with 
the  East  India  Company  in  1708  for  the  reduction  of  the  interest 
upon  a  large  sum  which  the  Grovernment  had  borrowed  from  that 
company ;  but  no  general  scheme  for  the  reduction  of  the  in- 
terest of  the  debt  was  devised  before  that  which  was  originated  by 
Walpole  in  1716,  and  carried  out  by  Stanhope  in  the  following 
year.  For  sometime  the  increase  of  prosperity  had  greatly  lowered 
the  normal  rate  cf  interest.      Under  William  the  Government, 
had  borrowed  money  at  seven  and  eight  per  cent.    Under  Anne 
it  usually  borrowed  at  five  or  six,  and  in  1714  the  legal  rate  of 
interest  was  reduced  to  five  per  cent.,  though  the  Government 

'  For  the  extravagant  terms  on  ^   MsLCpberson's  Annals  of  Cojnme7-ce, 

which  loans  were  raised  underWilliam,  ii.  4C3. 

see  Sinclair's  Hint,  of  the  Iferenue,  i.  '  Hjid.  p.  622. 
417-421. 


CH.  III.        RESPECT   OF  WALPOLE   FOR  PUBLIC   OPINION.  371 

funds  still  paid  a  much  higher  rate.  Under  these  circumstances 
it  was  found  practicable  to  reduce  the  interest  of  the  debt  to 
five  per  cent.,  the  Bank  and  the  South  Sea  Company,  which  were 
the  chief  creditors,  not  only  consenting  to  the  reduction,  but  also 
lending  money  to  pay  off  the  creditors  who  refused  to  acquiesce. 
Particular  taxes  had  been  apjjropriated  for  the  payment  of  the 
interest,  and  as  tliey  now  yielded  more  than  was  sufficient,  the 
surplus  was  formed  into  a  sinking  fund  accumulating  for  the 
payment  of  the  principal  of  the  debt.' 

In  this  manner  a  very  considerable  saving  was  made,  and  a  step 
taken  which  was  more  than  once  repeated.  The  payment  of  the 
debt,  however,  was  not  pursued  with  any  energy  by  Walpole.  A 
second  reduction  of  interest  took  place  in  1727,  and  it  greatly 
increased  the  sinking  fund,  but  that  sinking  fund  was  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  Government,  and  the  temptation  of  drawing  from  it 
in  every  season  of  emergency  was  irresistible.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  attribute  any  very  high  motives  to  Walpole  in  this  matter,  but 
he  would  probably  have  maintained  that  in  the  condition  in 
which  England  then  was,  it  was  more  important  to  make  the 
people  contented,  and  to  reconcile  the  country  gentry  to  the 
new  dynasty,  than  to  pay  off  the  debt.  Certain  it  is  that  he 
made  the  reduction  of  the  land  tax  rather  than  the  payment  of 
the  debt  the  end  of  his  policy.  For  a  few  years  the  sinking 
fUnd  was  applied  to  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended,  but 
in  1733  500,000/.  were  taken  from  it  for  the  services  of  the  year ; 
in  173-4  1,200,000/.  were  taken  for  similar  purposes,  and  in  1735 
it  was  all  anticipated.  But  though  no  great  credit  can  in  this 
respect  be  given  to  Walpole,  his  Government  was  at  least  an 
economical  one,  and  the  care  with  which  he  husbanded  the 
resources  of  the  country,  and  the  skill  with  which  he  developed 
its  commerce,  broke  the  chain  of  associations  which  connected 
the  Whig  party  with  a  policy  of  debt  and  of  extravagance. 

Still  more  remarkable,  when  we  consider  the  period  in 
which  he  lived,  was  his  deference  to  public  opinion.  Parliament 
was  at  this  time  no  faithful  representative  of  the  public  feeling 

'  See  Macpherson,  Chalmers,  and  Sinclair. 


372      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.    ch.  iir. 

and  in  Parliament  he  was  supreme.     But  no  Court  favour,  no 
confidence  in  an  obsequious  majority,  ever  induced  him,  except 
in  a  single  case  to  which  I  shall  hereafter  advert,  to  fall  into 
that  neolect  of  unrepresented  public  opinion  which  has  been  the 
fatal  error  of  so  many  politicians  and  the  parent  of  so  many 
revolutions.      In  few  periods  of  English   history   have  libels 
against  the  Government  been  more  virulent  or  more  able  ;  but, 
from  policy  or  temperament,  or  both,  Walpole  treated  them,  for 
the  most  part,  with  perfect  indifference.     '  No  Government,'  he 
boasted  in  one  of  his  speeches,  '  ever  punished  so  few  libels,  and 
no  Government  ever  had  provocation  to  punish  so  many.'     In 
the  last  reign  Parliament  and  the  tribunals  had  vied  with  each 
other  in  their  persecution  of  the  press.     Defoe,  Steele,  Drake, 
Binckes,  Tutchin,  Sacheverell,  Asgill,  and  a  crowd  of  obscure 
printers  had  been    fined,    imprisoned,   pilloried,    censured,   or 
expelled  from  Parliament.      But  under  Walpole    the    system 
of  repression  almost  ceased,  and  if  the  extreme  violence  and 
scurrility  of  the  stage,  and  the  success  with  which  Gay  and 
Fielding  employed  it  against  his  administration,  induced  him, 
in  1737,  to  carry  a  law  providing  that  no  play  could  be  publicly 
acted  without  the  licence   of  the  Chamberlain,  this   measure 
can  hardly  be  regarded  as  one  of  excessive  severity,  as  it  remains 
in  force  to  the  present  day.     As  a  minister,  Walpole  combined 
an  extreme  and  exaggerated  severity  of  party  discipline  within 
Parliament,  with  the  utmost  deference  for  the  public  opinion 
beyond  its  walls.     In  his  party  he  aspired  to  and  attained  the 
position  of  sole  minister.     He  gradually  displaced  every  man  of 
eminence  and  character  who  could  become  his  rival,  avoided  as 
much  as   possible   calling   cabinet   councils,    lest  they  should 
furnish  the  elements  of  an    opposition,  and  usually   matured 
his   measures  around  a  dinner-table  with  two   or   three    col- 
leagues who  were  specially  conversant  with  the  matter  in  ques- 
tion ;  sometimes,  when   the  project    was   one   of  law   reform, 
with  lawyers  of  the  Opposition.^     Important  despatches  were 
received  and  answered  without  being  communicated  to  his  col- 

'  See  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  CJiancellors,  vi.  p.  110. 


en.  in.        RKSPECT   OF  WALPOLE   FOR  PUBLIC   OPINION.  373 

leagues,  and  if  they  ventured  to  resist  his  decisions  lie  treated 
them  with  the  utmost  despotism.  '  Sir  Robert,'  said  the  old 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  with  her  usual  shrewdness,  '  never 
likes  any  but  fools  and  such  as  have  lost  all  credit.'  Lord 
Hardwicke  and  ]Mr.  Pelham  were  constantly  employed  in  com- 
posing the  quarrels  which  arose  from  the  slights  he  continually 
inflicted  on  the  Duke  of  Xewcastle ;  and  the  strength  of  tlie 
Opposition  that  overwhelmed  him  was  mainly  due  to  the  number 
of  men  of  talent  whom  he  had  discarded.  "SVhen  the  excise 
scheme  was  abandoned  he  peremptorily  dismissed  Lord  Chester- 
field, the  Duke  of  Montrose,  Lord  Marchmont,  and  Lord 
Clinton,  who  had  revolted  against  his  standard,  and,  by  an 
extreme  and  unjustifiable  stretch  of  authority,  even  deprived  the 
Duke  of  Bolton  and  Lord  Cobham  of  their  military  rank.  But 
the  minister  who  was  so  imperious  in  his  dealings  with  his  col- 
leagues or  subordinates  rarely  failed  to  mark  and  obey  the  first 
indication  of  a  public  opinion  that  was  hostile  to  his  projects. 
His  withdrawal  of  Wood's  halfpence,  when  they  had  excited  the 
opposition  of  the  Irish  people,  the  uniform  moderation  of  his 
religious  policy,  his  abandonment  of  his  project  of  excise,  are  all 
examples  of  his  constant  respect  for  the  wishes  of  the  people. 
Few  ministers  have  had  greater  facilities  for  carrying  out  a 
favourite  line  of  policy  in  defiance  of  their  wishes.  Xo  minister 
more  steadily  resisted  the  temptation.  His  conduct  on  the 
excise  question,  as  it  is  related  by  an  old  Member  of  Parliament 
who  enjoyed  his  intimate  friendship,  is  typical  of  his  whole 
career.  He  possessed  in  a  full  degree  the  pride  and  parental 
affection  of  a  statesman  for  the  great  measure  of  his  creation, 
and  he  was  keenly  sensi1)le  of  the  humiliation  of  abandoning  it 
at  the  dictation  of  an  Opposition.  No  one  knew  better  how 
irrational  was  the  popular  clamour,  or  how  factious  were  the 
motives  of  those  who  instigated  it.  The  Bill  passed  by  large 
majorities  through  its  earlier  stages,  but  the  minister  saw  that 
the  country  was  deeply  moved ;  and  the  evening  before  the 
final  stage  was  reached  he  summoned  his  adherents,  who  had  so 
far  borne  him  in  triumph,  and  he  consulted  with  them  on  the 


374  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

course  "be  should  pursue.  Without  a  single  dissentient  voice 
they  urged  him  to  persevere,  and  pledged  themselves  to  carry 
the  Bill.  Walpole  remained  silent  till  they  had  all  spoken, 
when  he  rose,  and  having  stated  how  conscious  he  was  of 
having  meant  well,  he  proceeded  to  say  that  '  in  the  present 
inflanied  temper  of  the  people  the  Act  could  not  be  carried  into 
execution  without  an  armed  force  ;  that  there  would  be  an  end 
to  the  liberty  of  England  if  supplies  were  to  be  raised  by  the 
sword.  If,  therefore,  the  resolution  was  to  go  on  with  the  Bill, 
he  would  immediately  wait  upon  the  King,  and  desire  His 
Majesty's  permission  to  resign  his  office,  for  he  would  not  be 
the  minister  to  enforce  taxes  at  the  expense  of  blood.' ^ 
English  political  history  contains  many  more  dazzling  episodes 
than  this.  It  contains  very  few  which  a  constitutional  statesman 
will  regard  as  more  worthy  of  his  admiration. 

A  kindred  spirit  of  moderation,  in  the  later  years  of  his  life, 
marked  his  dealings  with  his  opponents,  though  in  this  respect 
his  merits  have,  I  think,  been  much  exaggerated.  Among 
the  benefits  achieved  by  the  Eevolution,  one  of  the  greatest 
was  that  reform  of  the  law  of  treason  which  placed  the  political 
opponents  of  the  Government  under  efficient  legal  guarantees, 
put  an  end  to  the  intolerable  scandal  of  the  Stuart  State  trials, 
and  introduced  a  new  spirit  of  clemency  and  amenity  into 
English  politics.  The  change  was,  however,  only  very  gradu- 
ally effected.  The  Treason  Act  of  1696  did  not  extend  to  the 
case  of  those  wlio  Avere  impeached  by  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  the  unhappy  noblemen  who  suffered  for  the  rebellions  of 
1715  and  1745  were  compelled  to  defend  their  lives  almost 
without  legal  assistance.  Tlie  counsel  assigned  to  them  were 
not  allowed  to  cross-examine  any  witness,  to  give  the  prisoner 
any  assistance,  public  or  private,  while  matter  of  fact  only  was 

'  Almon's  Anecdotes  of  Chatham,  AValpole,  and  Archdeacon  Coxe  fully 

ii.  106.     Coxe's   Walpole,  i.  403-401.  admits  it.     At  the  same  time  it  mus. 

The  authority  for  this  anecdote  is  Mr.  be  acknowledged  that  it  is  not  easy 

White,  the  Member  for  Retford,  who  to  find  a  place  for  the  transaction  in 

was  an  intimate  friend  of  Walpole  ;  tlie  history  of  the  Excise  Bill  as  rar- 

it  is   itself  quite   in   harmony  with  rated  in  Lord  Hervey's  Memoirs. 
what  we  know  of  the  character  of 


CH.  III.  POLITICAL  PKOSECUTIONS.  375 

in  question,  or  to  hold  any  communication  with  him ;  thougli  if 
a  disputed  question  of  law  arose  in  the  course  of  the  trial,  they 
might  speak  to  it.     A  miserable  scene  took  place,  after  the 
former  rebellion,  at  tlie  trial  of  Lord  Wintoun.     He  is  said  to 
have  been,  at  best,  a  man  of  very  weak  intellect,  and  he  was 
evidently  utterly  bewildered  by  the    scene   and    situation    in 
which  lie  found  himself,  and  utterly  incapable  of  conducting  liis 
defence.     Again  and  again  he  implored  the  Lord  High  Steward 
to  allow  counsel  to  examine  the  witnesses,  and  to  speak  in  his 
behalf.     He.  professed  himself,  with  truth,  entirely  incapable  of 
conducting  a  cross-examination,  or  of  presenting  his  defence  • 
but  he  was  again  and  again  told  that  the  law  refused  him  the  le^al 
assistance  he  so  imperatively  required. ^     Hardly  less  scandalous 
was  the  scene  exhibited  thirty  years  later,  when  Lord  Lovat,  an 
old  man  of  eighty,  almost  ignorant  of  the  very  rudiments  of  the 
law,  and  with  the  grotesque  manners  of  a  half-savage  Highlan- 
der, was  compelled,  without  assistance,  to  defend  his  life  against 
an  array  of  the  most  skilful  lawyers  in  England.     The  injustice 
was  so  glaring  that  it  at  last  shocked  the  public  conscience, 
and   a  measure  was  moved   and    carried,  without  opposition 
in  1747,  for  allowing  the  same  privileges  of  counsel  to  pri- 
soners in  cases  of  impeachment  as  in  cases  of  indictment.^     For 
many  years  after  the  Revolution,  parliamentary  impeachment 
was  looked  upon  as  an  ordinary  weapon  of  political  warfare,  and 
the  Whig  party,  though  far  less  guilty  than  their  opponents, 
are  responsible  for  a  few    scandalous  instances   of  tyrannical 
severity.     The  execution  of  Sir  John  Fenwick,  by  a  Bill  of 
Attainder,  at  a  time  when  there  was  no  sufficient  legal  evidence 
to  procure  his  condemnation,  has  left  a  deep  stain  upon  the 
Government  of  William.     The  imprisonment  without  trial  of 
Bernardi  and  four  other  conspirators,  who  were  concerned  in  the 
plot  against  the  life  of  William  in    1696,  was  continued  by 
special  Acts  of  Parliament  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  William 
and  through  the  wliole  of  the  reign  of  Anne.     In  the  first  year 

'  Town^end's  Hist,  of  the  House  of  ^  20   George    ii.    c.    30.    Horace 

Commons,  ii.  28G-2'Jo.  Walpole  to  Mason,  May  1747. 


376  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

of  George  I.  a  petition  for  their  release  was  presented  to  the 
House  of  Lords ;  but  the  Whig  G-overnment  persuaded  the 
House  to  refuse  even  to  take  it  into  consideration.  It  was 
rejected  without  a  division,  Lord  Townshend  expressing  his 
astonishment  that  any  member  of  that  august  assembly  should 
speak  in  favour  of  such  execrable  wretches  ;  ^  and  Bernardi  at 
last  died,  in  1736,  at  the  age  of  eighty,  having  been  impri- 
soned, without  condemnation,  for  no  less  than  forty  years,  by 
the  Acts  of  six  successive  Parliaments.^  Walpole  himself  was 
a  leading  agent  in  the  impeachment  of  the  Tory  ministers  of 
Anne  for  the  negotiation  of  a  peace  which  had  received  the  assent 
of  two  Parliaments ;  and  Oxford  remained  for  two  years  in  the 
Tower  before  his  trial  and  acquittal.  The  severities  of  the 
Government  against  the  prisoners  who  were  implicated  in  the 
rebellion  of  1715  are  susceptible  of  more  defence,  but  it  is  at 
least  certain  that  the  ministers  by  no  means  erred  on  the  side 
of  clemency ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  Walpole  on  this 
occasion  uniformly  advocated  severity,  and  even  induced  Par- 
liament to  adjourn  between  the  condemnation  and  execution 
of  the  rebel  lords,  in  order  to  render  useless,  petitions  for  their 
reprieve.^  But  whatever  may  have  been  his  conduct  at  this 
time,  in  the  later  part  of  his  career  he  displayed  a  uniform 
generosity  to  opponents,  even  when  he  knew  them  to  be  im- 
plicated in  Jacobite  conspiracies,  and  when  they  were  therefore 
in  a  great  degree  in  his  power.  He  made  it  a  great  aim  to 
banish  violence  from  English  politics,  and  an  illustrious  modern 
critic,  who  was  far  from  favourable  to  him,  has  said  that  '  he 
was  the  minister  who  gave  to  our  Government  the  character  of 
lenity,  which  it  has  generally  preserved.'  * 

To  these  merits  we  must  add  his  ardent  love  of  peace,  and 
the  skill  with  which,  during  many  years  and  under  circum- 
stances of  great  difficulty,  he  succeeded  in  preserving  it.  He 
served  two   sovereigns,  tlie  first  of  whom  cared  nothing,  and 

'  Pari.  Hist.  vii.  61-62.  touching  allusion  to  this  case  in  his 

"'&ernSiT(lVsAutohiogra2)hy.  Towns-  Life  of  Pope. 
end's  Hist,  of  tlie  House  of  Commons,  '  Coxe's  Waljwle,  i.  72-73. 

ii.    205-206.    Johnson    has    made  a  *  Macaulay. 


CH.  in.  FOREIGN   TROUBLES.  377 

the  second  very  little,  for  any  but  Continental  politics ;  and 
George  11.  was  passionately  warlike,  and  anxious  beyond   all 
things  to  distinguish  himself  in  the  field.     He  was  at  the  head 
of  a  party  which  by  tradition  and  principle  was  extremely  war- 
like, which    originally    represented   the   reaction   against   the 
arrogant  ambition  of  Lewis  XIV.  and   the  abject  servility  of 
Charles  IL,  and  which  under  William  and  Anne  had  aspired 
to  make  England  the  arbiter  of  Europe.     He  was  embarrassed 
also  during  a  great  part  of  his  career  by  an  Opposition  which 
never  scrupled    for  party  purposes  to    aggravate  tlie  difficul- 
ties of  foreign  policy ;  and  the  whole  Continent  was  troubled 
by    the   restless  plotting  of  ambitious  and   perfectly   unscru- 
pulous rulers.     In  the  last  years  of  George  I.  Europe  was  again 
on  the  verge  of  a  general  conflagration.     When  peace  had  been 
established  between  France  and  Spain  in   1720  the  Infanta, 
who  was  then  only  four  years  old,  was  betrothed  to  Lewis  XV., 
and  she  was  brouoht  to  France  to  be  educated  as  a  French- 
v^oman.     By  thus  postponing  for  many  years  the  marriage  of 
the   young   king,  the    Regent  greatly   strengthened    the    pro- 
bability of  his  own  succession  to  the  throne ;  but  on  the  death 
of  the  Eegent  in  December  1723,  the  Duke  of  Bourbon,  who 
succeeded  to  power,  determined  to  hasten  the  royal  marriage. 
He  accordingly  broke  off  the  Spanish  alliance,  sent  the  Infanta 
back  to  Spain,  and  negotiated  an  almost  immediate  marriage  be- 
tween the  French  king  and  the  daughter  of  Stanislaus,  the  deposed 
King  of  Poland.     The  affront  thus  offered  to  the  Spanish  court, 
together  with  the  influence  of  Ripperda,  the  Dutch  adventurer, 
who  now  directed  Spanish  policy,  produced  or  at  least  accele- 
rated, a  great  change  in  the  aspect  of  European  politics.     The 
Emperor  and  the  King  of  Spain,  whose  rivalry  had  so  long  dis- 
tracted Eiu'ope,  now  gravitated  to  one  another,  and  a  close 
alliance  was   concluded  between  them  in   April  1725.^      The 
Spanish  Government  agreed  to  recognise  the  Pragmatic  Sanc- 
tion, which  provided  that  the  Austrian  succession  should  descend 
to  the  daughter  of  Charles  VI.,  and  it  ceded  almost  every  point 

'  See,  on  this  treaty,  Ranke's  Uist.  of  Prussia,  i.  190-192. 


378  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  m. 

that  was  at  issue  between  the  Courts.  Each  Power  agreed  to 
recognise  the  right  of  succession  of  the  other,  and  to  defend  the 
other  in  case  of  attack  ;  and  Spain  gratified  the  maritime  am- 
bition which  was  one  of  the  strongest  passions  of  the  Emperor, 
by  recognising  the  Ostend  Company,  by  placing  Austrian  sailors 
in  her  seaports  on  the  footing  of  the  most  favoured  nation,  and 
by  promising  them  special  protection  in  all  her  dominions. 

Of  all  mercantile  bodies  the  Ostend  Company  was  the  most 
offensive  to  England  and  Holland.  Founded  soon  after  the 
cession  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  to  Austria,  it  was  intended 
among  other  objects  to  establish  a  trade  by  the  subjects  of  the 
Emperor  with  India,  and  thus  to  break  down  the  monopoly 
which  the  India  companies  of  England  and  Holland  had  estab- 
lished.i  Two  ships  had  sailed  from  Ostend,  in  1717,  under  the 
passports  of  the  Emperor,  and  several  others  soon  followed  their 
example.  The  Dutch  seized  some  of  the  Ostend  ships  as  vio- 
lating their  monopoly.  The  Emperor  retaliated  "by  granting 
commissions  of  reprisal.  Laws  were  passed  in  England  in  1721 
and  1723  strengthening  the  English  monopoly,  and  authorising 
the  English  to  tine  any  foreigners  who  were  found  infringing  it, 
triple  the  sum  that  was  embarked ;  but  the  Emperor,  in  1723, 
gave  a  regular  charter  to  the  Ostend  Company,  and  in  defiance 
of  the  Dutch  and  English  Grovernments  it  rose  rapidly  mto 
prominence.  Its  recognition  by  Spain  was  therefore  a  mat- 
ter of  very  considerable  political  moment.  It  soon,  however, 
became  known  among  statesmen  that  other  objects  were  de- 
signed— that  Austria  engaged  to  assist  Spain  in  wresting 
Gibraltar  and  Minorca  from  England  ;  that  there  was  a  project, 
by  a  marriage  between  Maria  Theresa  and  Don  Carlos,  the  eldest 
son  of  Philip's  second  wife,  of  placing  the  Imperial  sceptre  in 
the  hands  of  a  Spanish  prince,  and  making  Austria  supreme  in 
Italy  by  joining  Parma,  Piacenza,  and  Tuscany,  which  were 
assured  to  Don  Carlos,  to  Naples  and  Sicily,  which  already 
belonged  to  Austria ;  that  Charles  VI.,  partly  from  religious 
fanaticism,  and  partly  from  personal  resentment,  was  boasting 

'  Mill's  nisi,  of  India,  bk.  iv.  c.  1. 


CH,  III.  THE   TREATY   OF  HANOVER.  379 

of  his  intention  to  drive  the  Protestant  line  from  the  English 
throne.  Russia,  after  the  death  of  Peter,  was  governed  hy 
Catherine,  who,  being  still  irritated  with  England  on  account  of 
the  policy  of  Hanover,  and  especially  anxious  to  obtain  Sleswig 
for  her  son-in-law,  the  Duke  of  Ilolstein,  favoured,  and  soon 
joined,  the  new  alliance.  The  King  and  Townshend,  contrary  to 
the  first  wishes  of  Walpole,  concluded  a  rival  confederation  of 
England,  France,  and  Prussia,'  at  Hanover,  in  September  1725; 
but  in  the  following  year  Prussia,  which  had  acceded  to  the  alliance 
only  on  the  condition  of  England  recognising  her  claims  to  Juliers 
and  Berg,  changed  sides.  Holland,  Sweden,  and  Denmark  were 
afterwards  ranged  with  England,  and  as  the  probabilities  of 
war  became  more  imminent,  an  army  of  about  44,000  Swedes, 
Danes,  and  Hessians  was  subsidised.  England  and  France 
both  contributed  to  the  expense,  but  12,000  Hessians  were 
taken  into  the  exclusive  pay  of  England.  Nearly  all  Europe 
was  preparing  for  war.  George  I.,  as  Elector  of  Hanover,  in- 
creased his  troops  from  16,000  to  22,000  men,  and  as  King  of 
England  from  18,000  to  26,000.  The  Spaniards,  relying  on 
the  conditional  promise  which  George  I.  had  vainly  made  as 
an  inducement  to  Spain  to  abstain  from  hostilities  in  1715, 
and  on  the  letter  which  he  had  written  to  the  King  of  Spain 
in  1721,  expressing  his  willingmess  to  restore  Gibraltar  with 
the  consent  of  Parliament,  demanded  the  restitution  of  that 
fortress.  Lord  Townshend  valued  it  little  more  than  Stanhope^ 
had  done,  but  public  opinion  in  England  would  make  any  attempt 

'  See,  on  Walpole's strong  objection  place.  But  you  cannot  but  be  sensible 

to  the  Treaty  of  Hanover,  Lord  Her-  of  the  violent  and  almost  superstitious 

vey's  Memoirs,   i.   110-111.     This  is  zeal    which    has    of    late    prevailed 

said  to  have  been  the  beginning  of  among  all  parties   in  this  kingdom 

the   difference  between  "Walpole  and  againstany  scheme  for  the  restitution 

To\sTishend,  and  the  first  occasion  in  of    Gibraltar    upon    any    conditions 

which    the     former    meddled     very  whatsoever.  And  I  am  afraid  that  the 

actively  with  foreign  affairs.  bare  mention   of    a  proposal   which 

.''InalettertoytephenPoyntz(June  carried  the  most  distant,  appearance 

3, 1728)  he  said  :  '  What  you  propose  in  of  laying  England  under  any  obliga- 

relation  to  Gibraltar  is  certainly  very  tion  of  ever  parting  with  that  place 

reasonable,  and  is  exactly  conformable  would  be  sufficient  to  put  the  whole 

to  the  opinion  which  you  know  I  have  nation  in  a  flame.' — Coxe's  Walpole, 

always  entertained  concerning   that  ii.  631. 


380  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EiaHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ce.  hi. 

at  concession  wholly  impossible,  and  in  February  1726-27  the 
Spaniards  began  hostilities  by  besieging  Gribraltar.  The  Emperor 
prepared  to  invade  Holland.  The  Eussian  forces,  by  sea  and 
land,  were  rapidly  organised.  France  massed  her  troops  on  the 
frontiers  of  Grermany.  An  English  squadron  had  already  sailed 
to  the  Baltic.  Another  threatened  the  Spanish  coast,  while  a 
third  prevented  the  departure  of  the  Spanish  galleons  from  the 
Indies. 

The  Treaty  of  Hanover  was  for  more  than  a  generation 
bitterly  assailed  in  England.  Its  justification  rests  upon  the 
reality  of  the  secret  articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Vienna,  and 
although  the  evidence  in  the  possession  of  the  Grovernment 
appears  to  have  been  very  sufficient,'  it  was  not  of  a  kind  that 
could  be  publicly  produced.  The  existence  of  these  articles 
was  announced  in  the  King's  speech  in  January  1726-27,^  but  it 
was  officially,  and  in  very  angry  terms,  denied  by  the  Austrian 
minister.  In  England  the  Treaty  of  Hanover  was  denounced  as 
intended  only  to  protect  the  German  dominions  of  the  King, 
as  strengthening,  by  our  alliance,  the  Power  on  the  Continent 
we  had  most  reason  to  fear,  as  placing  us  unnecessarily  in 
hostility  to  the  Emperor,  who  was  the  main  obstacle  to  French 
ambition.  It  was,  however,  a  defensive  measure  elicited  by  a 
grave  danger,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  a  war  with  the 
Emperor  should  centre  chiefly  in  Germany.  Walpole  dis- 
approved of  some  of  its  provisions,  and  especially  of  the  extrava- 
gance of  the  subsidy  to  Sweden,  and  he  made  it  a  main  object 
of  his  policy  to  moderate  the  demands  of  his  colleagues  and  of 
the  King,  and  to  delay,  restrict,  and  if  possible  avert,  the  war. 
His  conduct,  however,  during  the  tangled  events  that  followed 
was  not,  I  think,  marked  by  much  sagacity,  and  in  his  dealings 
with  Spain,  at  least,  he  showed  a  want  of  resolution  that  verged 
upon  pusillanimity.  He  refused  with  much  wisdom  to  listen 
to  a  plan  of  Townshend  for  the  conquest  and  partition  of  the 

>  See  the  interceiJted  letters  given  self.     Benjamin  Keens  to  the  Duke 

in  Coxe"s  Waljwle,  ii.  ix  498-515,  and  of    Newcastle.     Coxe"s    Walj)ole,    ii. 

the  full  accoimt  of  the  secret  articles  606-607. 
afterwards  given  by  Ripperda  him-  ^  Pari.  Hist.  viii.  524. 


CH.  III.  WALPOLE'S  PEACE  POLICY.  381 

Austrian  Netherlands,  or  to  allow  himself  to  be  hurried  into 
hostilities  by  the  very  arrogant  terms  of  a  memorial  in  which 
the  Austrian  ambassador  contradicted  the  assertions  of  the 
King's  speech  relating  to  the  secret  articles  of  the  treaty  of 
1725.  He  sent  Admiral  Hosier  to  the  West  Indies  to  blockade 
the  Spanish  galleons  in  Porto  Bello,  though  peace  was  still  sul)- 
sisting  between  the  two  countries,  but  he  bound  him  by  strict 
instructions  not  to  attack  the  Spaniards  unless  they  came  out. 
The  history  of  this  expedition  was  a  very  tragic  one.  A  prize 
of  inestimable  value  lay  within  the  grasp  of  the  English  sailors, 
who  were  forbidden  to  seize  it,  while  the  deadly  fever  of  tlie 
country  swept  them  away  by  hundreds.  The  fleet  rotted  in 
inaction,  and  the  admiral  is  said  to  have  died  of  a  broken  heart. 
His  fate,  commemorated  in  a  noble  ballad  by  Glover,  afterwards 
moved  the  English  people  to  the  higliest  point  of  pity  and 
indignation,  and  the  subsequent  conduct  of  Walpole  in  refrain- 
ing from  declaring  war  against  the  Spaniards  when  tliey  attacked 
Gibraltar  was  very  reasonably  censured.  His  object  was  to 
prevent,  if  possible,  a  European  war,  and  that  object  was  ac- 
complished. Ripperda,  who  had  contributed  so  largely  to  the 
complication,  had  been  disgraced  as  early  as  May  1726.  A 
month  later  the  Duke  of  Bourbon  was  replaced  by  Cardinal 
Fleury,  and  that  eminently  wise,  virtuous,  and  pacific  minister, 
during  many  years,  co-operated  cordially  with  the  peace  policy 
of  Walpole^  In  the  INIay  of  the  following  year  the  death  of 
the  Czarina  withdrew  Eussia  from  the  hostile  league.  The 
Emperor,  finding  perplexities  and  difficulties  multiplying  about 
him,  receded  from  his  engagements,  left  the  Spanish  forces  to 
waste  away  in  a  hopeless  enterprise  against  Gibraltar,  and  on 
the  last  day  of  May  1727  he  signed  the  preliminaries  of  a  peace 
with  England,  France,  and  Holland.  An  armistice  was  con- 
cluded, and  the  Ostend  Company  suspended  for  seven  years, 
witli  the  secret  understanding  that  it  was  not  to  be  revived ;  the 
chief  questions  at  issue  were  referred  to  a  future  congress,  and 
a  war  which  threatened  to  be  general  shrank  into  the  smallest 
dimensions.     The  Spanish  position  seemed  hopeless,  and   the 


382  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.         ch.  hi. 

Spanish  ambassador  at  Vienna  accepted  the  preliminaries  of 
peace,  and  engaged  that  the  siege  of  Gibraltar  should  at  once 
be  raised,  and  tliat  a  ship  belonging  to  the  South  Sea  Company 
which  the  Spaniards  had  captured  should  be  restored. 

Philip,  however,  for  a  time  refused  to  ratify  these  prelimi- 
naries. George  I.  died  suddenly  in  Germany  on  June  1 1, 1727, 
and  some  expectations  appear  to  have  been  entertained  at  the 
Spanish  Court  of  a  Jacobite  restoration,  of  a  period  of  disturb- 
ance and  impotence,  or  at  least  of  a  gi'eat  change  in  English 
policy,  arising  from  the  violent  hostility  of  the  new  King  to 
the  ministers  of  his  father.  But  these  expectations  were  dis- 
appointed. After  a  few  days  of  suspense,  Walpole  was  fully 
confirmed  in  his  previous  power,  and  the  substitution  of  a  king 
who  at  least  knew  the  language  of  his  country,  for  one  who 
never  ceased  to  be  a  complete  foreigner,  somewhat  strengthened 
the  new  establishment  without  perceptibly  altering  its  policy. 
The  refusal  of  Philip,  however,  to  ratify  the  preliminaries 
threatened  a  renewal  of  danger  ;  the  Emperor  showed  some  signs 
of  fresh  activity,  and,  as  a  measure  of  precaution,  a  new  German 
treaty  was  made  in  November,  securing  the  assistance  of  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  Wolfenbuttel,  in  the  event  of  an  attack 
upon  Hanover.  At  last,  in  March  1728,  the  long  negotiation 
was  brought  a  stage  further  by  the  signatm-e  of  a  convention  at 
the  Pardo  ;  a  congress  was  held  at  Soissons,  which  led  to  no  defi- 
nite results ;  but,  by  the  combined  influence  of  Fleury  and  Wal- 
pole, a  treaty  was  concluded  at  Seville  in  March  1729,  by  which 
the  Spanish  Queen  succeeded  in  avenging  herself  for  tlie  deser- 
tion of  the  Emperor  and  taking  a  new  step  towards  the  attain- 
ment of  one  of  the  favomite  objects  of  her  life.  To  secure' the 
succession  of  her  son  in  Tuscany  and  Parma,  it  was  agreed  that 
those  provinces  should  be  at  once  garrisoned,  not,  as  the  Quad- 
ruple Alliance  had  promised,  by  neutral  troops,  but  by  6,000 
Spanish  soldiers.  Gibraltar  was  not  mentioned  in  the  treaty, 
and  this  silence  was  regarded  as  a  renunciation  of  the  claims  of 
Spain.  The  commercial  privileges  conceded  to  the  Emperor 
by  the  Treaty  of  Vienna,  which  had  been  so  obnoxious  to  Eng- 


c-H.  in.  TREATY   OF  SEVILLE.  383 

land,  were  revoked.  The  commerce  of  the  English  and  French 
with  the  Spanish  dominions  was  re-established  on  the  same 
footing  as  before  1 725,  injuries  done  to  English  ships  or  interests 
were  to  be  compensated,  and  a  close  defensive  alliance  was 
established  between  France,  Spain,  and  England. 

Tlie  Treaty  of  Seville  has  been  justly  regarded  as  one  of  tlie 
great  triumphs  of  French  diplomacy.  It  closed  the  breach 
which  had  long  divided  the  courts  of  France  and  of  Spain, 
and  at  the  same  time  it  detached  both  England  and  Spain  from 
the  Emperor,  and  left  him  isolated  in  Europe.  He  resented  it 
bitterly,  protested  against  the  introduction  of  Spanish  troops 
into  Italy  as  a  violation  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  threat- 
ened to  resist  it  by  force,  and  delayed  the  execution  of  this 
part  of  the  treaty  during  the  whole  of  1730.  In  the  meantime 
the  condition  of  Europe  had  become  very  dangerous.  Spain 
was  much  exasperated  at  the  dekw,  and  there  was  much  danger 
that  England  would  find  herself  forced,  in  conjunction  with  France 
and  Spain,  into  a  war  which  would  most  probably  ultimately 
extend  to  the  Austrian  Xetherlands,  and  might  result  in  acquisi- 
tions by  France  very  dangerous  to  England.  The  resignation 
of  Townshend  had  by  this  time  made  Walpole  more  prominent 
in  foreign  affairs,  and  he  opened  a  secret  negotiation  with  the 
Emperor  in  order  to  avert  war.  England  undertook  to  guaran- 
tee the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  by  which  the  Emperor  was  endea- 
voui'ing  to  secure  for  his  daughter  the  inheritance  of  his  heredi- 
tary dominions,  and  on  this  condition  he  consented  to  the 
admission  of  the  Spanish  troops.  The  new  Treaty  of  Vienna 
was  signed  without  the  participation  or  assent  of  France,  in 
March  1731  ;  the  danger  of  a  European  war  was  again  for  a 
time  averted,  and  on  October  17,  a  fleet  of  sixteen  British  men- 
of-war  escorted  the  Spanish  troops  to  Italy. 

The  policy  of  England  during  all  these  tortuous  negotia- 
tions was  not  always  wise,  consistent,  or  even  strictly  houoiu:- 
able,  but  its  first  object  was  the  maintenance  of  European  peace, 
and  it  shows  how  widely  the  "Whig  party  under  Walpole  had  in 
this  respect  departed  from  the  traditions  of  William  III.  and  of 


384  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

Godolphin.  In  the  next  war  his  firm  will  alone  prevented  Eng- 
land from  being  involved.  In  February  1732-33  Augustus  II., 
Kino-  of  Poland,  died,  and  the  succession  was  at  once  contested 
between  Stanislaus  and  Augustus,  the  Elector  of  Saxony.  The 
first  who  had  previously  been  placed  on  the  Polish  throne  by 
Charles  XII.,  but  dethroned  by  the  Eussians,  was  now  elected  by 
the  Poles ;  and,  as  he  was  the  father  of  the  young  Queen  of  France, 
Fleury  was  compelled  very  reluctantly,  by  the  military  party 
at  Court,  to  support  his  claims  by  the  sword.  His  competitor, 
who  was  the  son  of  the  former  king,  was  supported  by  Eussia, 
which  regarded  Stanislaus  as  a  natm-al  enemy,  and  he  succeeded 
in  inducing  the  Emperor  Charles  VI.  to  enter  very  gratuitously 
into  the  conflict,  partly  through  a  desire  to  prevent  what  was 
supposed  to  be  an  extension  of  French  influence,  and  partly 
because  Augustus  offered  to  guarantee  the  Pragmatic  Sanction. 
The  war  lasted  till  1735,-  but  it  speedily  changed  its  character 
and  its  objects.  The  Polish  episode  sank  into  comparative  insigni- 
ficance, and  the  French  carried  their  arms  with  brilliant  success 
into  Germany  and  into  the  Austrian  territories  of  Italy.  Spain 
and  Sardinia  joined  against  the  Emperor.  The  6,000  Spanish 
soldiers  whom  England  had  so  recently  escorted  into  Italy^ 
marched  in  conjunction  with  Sardinian  troops  and  with  a  body 
of  French  auxiliaries,  upon  the  Milanese,  and  the  result  of  the 
war  was  a  very  considerable  modification  of  the  balance  of 
power.  With  the  exception  of  the  Duchies  of  Parma  and 
Placentia,  which  were  now  ceded,  and  of  a  portion  of  the  Milanese 
which  was  restored,  to  Austria,  the  Emperor  lost  all  territory 
in  Italy.  Naples  and  Sicily  passed  to  Don  Carlos,  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  JNIilanese  to  the  King  of  Sardinia.  The  Poles, 
finding  themselves  almost  deserted  by  France  and  incapable  of 
resisting  Eussia,  elected  Augustus,  while  Stanislaus  was  com- 
pensated in  a  way  which  greatly  surprised  Europe,  and  had  a 
very  important  influence  upon  future  policy.  For  several 
generations  one  of  the  great  ends  of  French  ambition  had  been 

'  The  preliminaries  of  peace  were  signed   in   1735,   but    the   definitive 
peace  in  1738. 


CH.  III.  WAR   OF  THE   POLISH  SUCCESSION.  385 

the  acquisition  of  Lorraine,  which  commanded  one  of  the  chief 
roads  from  Germany  to  France.  Twice  already — in  tlie  Thirty 
Years'  War  and  in  the  War  of  the  League  of  Augsburg — it  had 
passed  under  French  dominion,  hut  in  each  case  PVance  had 
been  compelled  to  restore  it  at  the  peace,  thougli  she  retained 
a  moral  control  over  its  Duke  which  almost  amounted  to 
sovereignty.  In  Italy  the  last  of  the  Medici  was  now  hastening 
to  the  tomb,  and  Fleury  proposed  that  the  Duke  of  Lorraine, 
who  was  affianced  to  JNIaria  Theresa,  and  thus  closely  connected 
with  the  Austrian  interest,  should  succeed  to  the  Grand  Duchy 
of  Tuscany  ;  tliat  Stanislaus,  retaining  the  title  of  king,  should 
obtain  possession  of  the  Duchies  of  Lorraine  and  Bar ;  and  that 
on  his  death  those  Duchies  should  be  for  ever  united  to  France. 
In  consideration  of  this  arrangement,  France  agreed  to  restore 
her  conquests  in  Germany,  and  to  guarantee  the  Pragmatic  Sanc- 
tion. The  terms  were  accepted,  and  thus  France,  under  the 
guidance  of  one  of  the  most  pacific  of  her  ministers,  obtained  a 
more  real  and  considerable  accession  of  power  than  any  which 
had  been  gained  by  the  ambition  of  Lewis  XIY. 

It  was  only  with  extreme  difficulty  that  Walpole  could 
induce  England  to  remain  passive  during  the  struggle.  The 
King  was  vehemently  hostile  to  the  French.  As  a  German 
prince  and  a  member  of  the  Empire,  he  saw  with  the  utmost  in- 
dignation the  diminution  of  the  Imperial  power,  and  he  was  full 
of  a  boyish  eagerness  to  distinguish  himself  in  the  field.  It  was 
no  slight  trial  for  the  Power  which  was  indisputably  the  mistress 
of  the  sea  to  see  a  French  fleet  sailing  unmolested  to  the  Baltic 
to  support  the  cause  of  Stanislaus  in  the  north,  and  a  Spanish 
fleet  in  the  following  year  transporting  20,000  men  to  Italy 
to  add  Sicily  and  Spain  to  the  dominions  of  the  House  of  Bour- 
bon. The  Cabinet  was  divided  in  opinion.  Statesmen  had 
learnt  that  the  advocacy  of  war  was  the  easiest  way  to  the  royal 
favour,  and  the  Opposition  Members  were  busy  inflaming  the 
passions  of  the  people.  In  spite  of  the  French  alliance,  which 
had  been  begim  by  Dubois  and  continued  by  Fleury,  the  senti- 
ment of  England  was  strongly  anti-Gallican,  and  there  were 
VOL.  I.  26 


386  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

plausible  arguments  for  intervention.  The  greatest  danger  to 
England  lay  in  the  power  of  France,  and  that  power  for  several 
generations  had  been  rapidly  increasing.  The  sagacious  admin- 
istration of  Kichelieu  and  Mazarin,  the  decadence  of  Spain,  the 
policy  of  Cromwell,  who  supported  the  growing  power  of  France 
against  the  declining  power  of  Spain,  and  the  subservience  of 
Charles  II.  and  his  successor  to  Lewis  XIV.,  had  together  pro- 
duced a  French  ascendency  which  seemed  likely  to  overshadow 
all  the  liberties  of  Europe.  The  Eevolution  had  done  much 
to  restore  the  balance  of  power,  but  still  French  influence  in  many 
quarters  continued  steadily  to  advance,  though  two  great  wars 
had  been  undertaken  for  the  purpose  of  abridging  it.  France 
had  obtained  Alsace  by  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  ten  Imperial  towns,  the  liberty  of  which  was  solemnly 
guaranteed,  but  she  soon  began  to  treat  those  towns  exactly  like 
the  rest  of  the  province.  Strasburg,  which  was  by  far  the 
most  important  of  them,  she  had  surprised  and  seized  in  1681, 
by  an  act  of  high-handed  violence  in  a  time  of  perfect  peace, 
and  without  a  shadow  of  justification  or  excuse.  The  Emperor, 
embarrassed  by  a  Turkish  war  and  by  Hungarian  insurrec- 
tion, was  unable  to  resent  the  aggression,  and  the  Peace  of 
Eyswick,  which  terminated  the  great  war  of  the  Eevolution, 
confirmed  and  sanctioned  it.  The  wars  of  Marlborough  for  a 
time  brought  France  apparently  to  the  lowest  depths  of  exhaus- 
tion, but  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  restored  to  her  much  of  what  she 
had  lost.  A  French  prince  remained  upon  the  Spanish  throne, 
and  her  military  power  was  still  so  formidable  that  as  soon  as 
the  peace  had  dissolved  the  coalition  against  her,  she  com- 
pletely routed  the  forces  of  the  Empire,  though  Eugene  was  at 
their  head.  On  sea,  it  is  true,  she  never  recovered  the  ascen- 
dency she  lost  at  La  Hogue,  but  on  land  no  one  Power  could 
compete  with  her.  She  had  brought  the  art  of  war  to  such 
perfection  that  in  the  course  of  a  single  reign  no  less  than  five 
generals — Conde,  Turenne,  Luxemburg,  Vendome,  and  Villars — • 
of  brilliant  and  extraordinary  ability,  appeared  in  her  armies  ; 
and  it  is  remarkable  that  jNIarlborough,  who  alone  eclipsed  them, 


CH.  in.  GROWTH  OF  FRENCH  POWER.  387 

had  passed  through  the  same  school.  He  had  served  as  a  young 
raan  under  Turenne,  and  he  ascribed  to  the  lessons  he  then 
learnt,  much  of  his  later  success.^  The  alienation  between 
France  and  Spain  whicli  followed  the  death  of  Lewis  XIV. 
had  for  a  time  interrupted  the  course  of  French  ambition,  but 
it  had  been  appeased  by  the  conciliatory  policy  of  Fleury,  and 
the  firstfruits  of  the  reconciliation  had  been  the  decline  of 
Austrian  influence  in  Italy,  the  elevation  of  a  Bourbon  prince 
to  the  Neapolitan  throne,  and  the  consolidation  of  the  French 
•  territory  l)y  the  reversion  of  Lorraine. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  this  increase  of  French  power 
should  have  excited  deep  alarm.  In  the  interval  between  the 
first  decadence  of  Spain  and  the  rise  of  Prussia  and  Russia, 
Austria  was  the  only  serious  competitor  of  France  upon  the 
Continent,  and  Austria  was  certainly  inferior  in  strength  to  her 
old  rival,  and,  except  on  the  side  of  Turkey,  she  seemed  steadily 
declining.  The  House  of  Austria,  which  had  once,  in  the  per- 
son of  Charles  V.,  almost  given  law  to  Europe,  and  had  led  a 
French  king  captive  to  Madrid,  was  now  so  weakened  that  it 
was  defeated  in  almost  every  war,  and  nearly  every  generation 
seemed  to  mark  a  stage  in  its  decline.  France  had  succeeded  in 
her  old  object  of  dissevering  from  the  Empire  the  vast  domi- 
nions of  Spain.  She  had  pushed  her  frontiers  into  Germany. 
She  had  acquired  such  an  ascendency  over  some  of  the  Electors 
of  the  Empire  that  it  was  even  likely  that  the  House  of  Austria 
would  soon  be  deprived  of  the  Imperial  crown.  She  had  shaken 
and  almost  destroyed  that  Austrian  supremacy  in  Italy  wliich 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht  and  the  Quadruple  Alliance  had  esta- 
blished. In  modern  times  her  power  in  Europe  has  been  to  a 
-great  degree  paralysed  by  the  intensity  of  her  internal  divisions, 
while  her  progress  in  more  distant  quarters  has  been  restricted 
by  an  incurable  incapacity  for  successful  colonisation,  due  prin- 
cipally  to  the  French  passion  for  centralisation  and  over-admin- 
istration. But  these  sources  of  weakness  were  as  yet  un perceived. 
No  nation  in  its  dealings  with  surrounding  countries  exhibited  a 

'  Mcmoires  de  Torcy,  ii.  89. 


388  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

greater  unity  or  concentration  of  resources,  and  there  appeared 
as  yet  no  clear  reason  why,  in  the  race  of  colonial  enterprise, 
she  should  not  become  the  successful  rival  of  England.     On 
the  other  hand,  France  already  exhibited  to  the  highest  perfec- 
tion that  rare  capacity  of  assimilating  to  herself  the  provinces 
she  annexed,  which  has  been  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  her 
Greatness,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  proofs  of  the  high  quali- 
ties of  her  national  character.     No  modern  nation  which  has 
annexed  so  much  has  been  so  little  distracted  by  the  struggles 
of  suppressed  nationalities,  or  has  succeeded  so  perfectly  in  times 
of  danger,  difficulty,  and  disaster  in  commanding  the  enthu- 
siastic  devotion  of  the  most  distant  and   the  most   recently 
acquired  of  her  provinces.     Her  military  system  has,  no  doubt, 
done  much  to  give  a  unity  of  sympathy  and  enthusiasm  to  the 
nation.  Paris,  owing  to  causes  some  of  which  have  been  very  mis- 
chievous, early  exercised  a  fascination  over  the  imaginations  of 
great  masses  of  men  such  as  no  other  modern  capital  has  possessed, 
but  all  this  would  have  been  insufficient  had  there  not  been  an 
unrivalled  power  of  attraction,  sympathy,  and  assimilation  in 
the  French  character,  a  power  in  which  Englishmen  are  signally 
deficient,    and   which    has    made   French  ambition    peculiarly 
formidable. 

On  such  grounds  as  these  the  Opposition  were  never  tired  of 
urging  that  France  was  rapidly  advancing  towards  universal 
empire,  and  that  unless  she  were  speedily  checked,  the  liberties 
of  England  must  ultimately  succumb.  On  sea  England  was, 
they  admitted,  still  supreme,  but  of  all  forms  of  power  this, 
they  said,  was  the  most  precarious.  An  accident,  a  blunder,  an 
unfavourable  wind,  might  expose  her  coast  to  invasion,  even  in 
the  zenith  of  her  maritime  greatness.  The  naval  supremacy  of 
Carthage  had  not  saved  her  from  destruction  when  Rome  became 
dominant  in  the  neighbouring  continent.  The  naval  supre- 
macy of  Spain  had  been  irretrievably  ruined  by  the  failure  of  a 
single  expedition,  and  the  destruction  of  the  Armada  was  much 
more  due  to  the  fury  of  the  elements  than  to  the  fleet  that  was 
opposed  to  it.     The  naval  supremacy  of  England  had  trembled 


CH.  in.  PACIFIC   POLICY  OF  WALPOLE.  389 

very  doubtfully  in  tlie  balance  after  the  battle  of  Beacliy  Head ; 
and  the  battle  of  Lallogue,  which  re-established  it,  might  have 
had  a  different  issue  had  not  the  French  Admiral  been  unex- 
pectedly confronted  with  the  fleet  of  Holland  as  well  as  the  fleet 
of  England.  Besides  this,  it  was  added,  if  France  could  once 
place  herself  beyond  rivalry  on  the  Continent  she  might  diminish 
her  armies  and  devote  the  main  energies  of  the  State  to  securing 
the  empire  of  the  sea. 

Fears  of  this  kind  have  in  many  periods  haunted  speculative 
politicians,  who  have  usually  not  fully  realised  the  magnitude  of 
the  difficulties  which  any  attempt  to  obtain  universal  empire 
must  encounter,  the  extreme  complexity  of  the  forces  on  which  in 
modern  society  political  power  depends,  and  also  the  very  narrow 
limits  within  which  all  sound  political  prediction  is  confined. 
Walpole,  however,  was  steadily  in  favour  of  peace.  He  felt  all 
the  antipathy  of  a  great  practical  statesman  to  a  policy  which 
would  expose  the  country  to  the  imminent  dangers,  to  the  inevit- 
able exhaustion  of  a  European  war,  in  order  to  avert  dangers 
that  were  far  distant,  uncertain,  and  perhaps  visionary.  He  main- 
tained that  a  war  for  the  succession  of  Poland  was  one  in  which 
England  had  no  reasonable  concern  ;  that  if  she  engaged  in  it  the 
burden  could  not  fail  to  produce  the  most  dangerous  discontent 
among  the  English  people  ;  that  the  diminution  of  the  Imperial 
influence  in  Italy  in  no  degree  affected  English  interests,  especi- 
ally as  France  obtained  no  territory  in  that  country ;  that  the 
system,  which  was  becoming  chronic,  of  involving  England  in 
every  Continental,  and  especially  in  every  German,  complication 
was  fatal  to  her  security  and  utterly  incompatible  with  her  true 
interests.  The  French  alliance  had  already  produced  the  greatest 
benefits  to  England.  The  point  upon  the  Continent  where 
French  ambition  was  most  dangerous  was  the  Dutch  barrier,  but 
Flemy  had  very  judiciously  abstained  from  all  hostilities  against 
the  Austrian  Netherlands,  though  they  were  left  almost  unde- 
fended, and  Holland  was  quite  resolved  to  persist  in  her  neutrality. 
Under  the  influence  of  a  long  peace  the  country  was  steadily 
advancing  in  prosperity  and  wealth,  and  in  all  the  elements  of 


390  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

real  power,  and  tlie  new  dynasty  and  the  parliamentary  system 
were  beginning  to  take  root.  A  foreign  war  would  at  once 
arrest  the  progress,  and  Walpole  predicted* — and  the  event  fully 
justified  his  prescience — that  it  would  inevitably  lead  to  a  new 
Jacobite  rebellion.  Besides  this,  a  strong  detestation  of  war 
was  one  of  his  most  honourable  characteristics.  '  It  requires  no 
great  art,'  he  once  said,  '  in  a  minister  to  pursue  such  measures 
as  might  make  war  inevitable.  I  have  lived  long  enough  in  the 
world  to  see  how  destructive  the  effects  even  of  a  successful  war 
have  been,  and  shall  I,  who  see  this,  when  I  am  admitted  to  the 
honour  to  bear  a  share  in  His  Majesty's  councils,  advise  him  to 
enter  into  a  war  when  peace  may  be  had  ?  No,  I  am  proud  to 
own  it,  I  always  have  been,  and  I  always  shall  be  the  advocate 
of  peace.'  The  statesman  who  was  continually  accused  by  his 
contemporaries  of  sacrificing  ail  English  interests  to  the  German 
policy  of  the  Court,  and  who  is  now  often  described  as  incapable 
of  risking  for  a  moment  his  position  in  the  interests  of  his 
country,  was  for  a  considerable  time  engaged  in  saving  England 
from  a  German  war  in  opposition  to  the  strongest  wishes  both 
of  the  King  and  of  the  Queen.  It  is  remarkable  that  his 
arguments  in  favour  of  a  peace  policy  were  chiefly  conveyed 
to  the  King  through  the  medium  of  the  Queen,  who  was  her- 
self an  advocate  of  war,  and  it  is  still  more  remarkable  that 
she  discharged  her  office  with  such  fidelity  and  force  that  the 
arguments  she  transmitted  actually  convinced  the  King  while 
her  own  judgment  remained  unchanged.^  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  in  the  latter  part  of  his  career  Walpole  was  driven  into 
war  with  Spain  ;  but  not  until  public  excitement,  aggravated 
by  an  unscrupulous  Opposition,  had  risen  to  such  a  frenzy  that 
no  Government  could  resist  it,  not  until  the  convention  he  had 
negotiated  between  England  and  Spain  had  been  generally 
scouted.  For  many  years,  however,  he  succeeded,  in  spite  of 
constant  opposition,  in  keeping  the  country  in  undisturbed  peace, 
and  by  doing  so  he  conferred  both  upon  his  nation  and  upon  his 

'  Hervey's  Memoirs,  i.  375.  *  Ibid.  i.  397. 


CH.  III.  PACIFIC  POLICY  OF  WALPOLE.  391 

party  an  inestimable  benefit.  To  the  long  peace  of  Walpole  was 
mainly  due  the  immense  material  development  which  contributed 
so  largely  to  the  success  of  later  wars,  and  also  most  probably 
the  firm  establishment  of  parliamentary  government  and  of  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty.  The  greatest  danger  to  the  Whig  party, 
and  tl\e  greatest  danger  to  the  country  from  its  supremacy, 
lay  in  the  traditions  of  its  foreign  policy,  and  those  traditions 
Walpole  resolutely  cut.  He  has  been  much  blamed  for  having 
taken  no  steps  during  his  long  ministry  to  break  the  power 
of  the  Highland  chiefs,  by  whom  the  rebellion  of  1745  was 
mainly  effected.  In  a  country  where  the  clan  feeling  was  still 
extremely  strong,  such  steps  would,  it  appears  to  me,  have  been 
the  most  natural  means  of  producing  an  immediate  revolt,  and 
thus  stirring  up  all  the  elements  of  discontent  that  were  smoul- 
dering throughout  the  nation.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  scarcely 
doubtful  that  if  the  pacific  policy  which  Walpole  desired,  had 
continued,  the  rebellion  would  never  have  broken  out;  and  it  was 
the  dLrect  result  of  the  conciliatory  measures  of  his  administra- 
tion that  when  it  did  break  out  it  found  no  sympatliy  in  England, 
and  was  in  consequence  easily  suppressed. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  long  ascendency  of  Walpole 
was  in  no  degree  owing  to  any  extraordinary  brilliancy  of  elo- 
quence. He  was  a  clear  and  forcible  reasoner,  ready  in  reply, 
and  peculiarly  successful  in  financial  exposition,  but  he  had 
little  or  nothing  of  the  temperament  or  the  talent  of  an  orator. 
It  is  the  custom  of  some  writers  to  decry  parliamentary  insti- 
tutions as  being  simply  government  by  talking,  and  to  assert 
that  when  they  exist  mere  rhetorical  skill  will  always  be  more 
valued  than  judgment,  knowledge,  or  character.  The  enormous 
exaggeration  of  such  charges  may  be  easily  established.  It  is, 
no  doubt,  inevitable  that  where  business  is  transacted  chiefly  by 
debate,  the  talent  of  a  debater  should  be  highly  prized  ;  but  it 
is  perfectly  untrue  that  British  legislatures  have  shown  less 
skill  than  ordinary  sovereigns  in  distinguishing  solid  talent 
from  mere  showy  accomplishments,  or  that  parliamentary  weight 
has  in  England  been  usually  proportioned  to  oratorical  power. 


392  ENGLA^*D   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  in. 

St    John  was  a  far  greater  orator  than  Harley ;  Pulteney  was 
probably  a  greater  orator  than  Walpole;  Stanley  in  mere  rheto- 
rical skill  was  undoubtedly  the  superior  of  Peel.     Godolphin, 
Pelham,  Castlereagh,  Liverpool,  Melbourne,  Althorp,  Welling- 
ton Lord  J.  Kussell,  and  Lord  Palmerston  are  all  examples  of 
men  who,  either  as  statesmen  or  as  successful  leaders  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  have   taken  a  foremost  place  in  English 
politics  without  any  oratorical  brilliancy.     Sheridan,  Plunket, 
and  Brougham,  though  orators  of  almost  the  highest  class,  left 
no  deep  impression  on  English  public  life ;  the  ascendency  of 
Grrey  and  Canning  was  very  transient,  and  no  Opposition  since 
the  early  Hanoverian  period  sank  so  low  as  that  which  was  guided 
by  Fox.  The  two  Pitts  and  Mr.  Gladstone  are  the  three  examples 
of  speakers  of  transcendent  power  exercising  for  a  considerable 
time  a  commanding  influence  over  English  politics.  The  younger 
Pitt  is,  I  believe,  a  real  instance  of  a  man  whose  solid  ability 
bore  no  kind  of  proportion  to  his  oratorical   skill,  and  who,  by 
an  almost  preternatural  dexterity  in  debate,  accompanied  by  great 
decision  of  character,  and  assisted  by  the  favour  of  the  King,  by 
the  magic  of  an  illustrious  name,  and  by  a  great  national  panic, 
maintained  an  authority  immensely  greater  than  his  deserts. 
But  in  this  respect  he  stands  alone.     The  pinnacle  of  glory  to 
which  the  elder  Pitt  raised  his  country  is  a  sufficient  proof  of 
the  almost  unequalled  administrative  genius  which  he  displayed 
in  the  conduct  of  a  war  ;  and  in  the  sphere  of  domestic  policy 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  any  other  English  minister  since 
the  accession  of  the  House  of  Brunswick  has  carried  so  many 
measures  of  magnitude  and  difficulty,  or  exhibited  so  perfect  a 
mastery  over  the  financial  system  of  the  country  as  the  great 
living  statesman. 

The  qualities  of  Walpole  were  very  different,  but  it  is  im- 
possible, I  think,  to  consider  his  career  with  adequate  attention 
without  recognising  in  him  a  great  minister,  although  the 
merits  of  his  administration  were  often  rather  negative  than 
positive,  and  although  it  exhibits  few  of  those  dramatic  inci- 
dents, and  is  but  little  susceptible  of  that  rhetorical  colouring, 


CH.  III.  VICES   OF  WALPOLE.  393 

on  which  the  reputation  of  statesmen  largely  depends.  ^Vith- 
out  any  remarkable  originality  of  thought  or  creative  genius, 
he  possessed  in  a  high  degree  one  quality  of  a  great  statesman 
—  the  power  of  judging  new  and  startling  events  in  the  moments 
of  excitement  or  of  panic  as  tliey  would  be  judged  by  ordi- 
nary men  when  the  excitement,  the  novelty,  and  the  panic  had 
passed.  He  was  eminently  true  to  the  character  of  his  country- 
men. He  discerned  with  a  rare  sagacity  the  lines  of  policy 
most  suited  to  their  genius  and  to  their  needs,  and  he  had  a 
sufficient  ascendency  in  English  politics  to  form  its  traditions, 
to  give  a  character  and  a  bias  to  its  institutions.  The  Whig 
party,  under  his  guidance,  retained,  though  with  diminished 
energy,  its  old  love  of  civil  and  of  religious  liberty,  but  it  lost 
its  foreign  sympathies,  its  tendency  to  extravagance,  its  military 
restlessness.  The  landed  gentry,  and  in  a  great  degree  the 
Church,  were  reconciled  to  the  new  dynasty.  The  dangerous 
fissures  which  divided  the  English  nation  were  filled  up.  Par- 
liamentary government  lost  its  old  violence,  it  entered  into  a 
period  of  normal  and  pacific  action,  and  the  habits  of  compro- 
mise, of  moderation,  and  of  practical  good  sense,  which  are 
most  essential  to  its  success,  were  greatly  strengthened. 

These  were  the  great  merits  of  "NValpole.  His  faults  were 
very  manifest,  and  are  to  be  attributed  in  part  to  his  own 
character,  but  in  a  great  degree  to  the  moral  atmosphere  of 
his  time.  He  was  an  honest  man  in  the  sense  of  desiring  sin- 
cerely the  welfare  of  his  country  and  serving  his  sovereign  with 
fidelity;  but  he  was  intensely  wedded  to  power,  exceedingly 
unscrupulous  about  the  means  of  grasping  or  retaining  it,  and 
entirely  destitute  of  that  <ielicacy  of  honour  which  marks  a 
high-minded  man.  In  the  opinion  of  most  of  his  contemporaries, 
Townsliend  and  Walpole  had  good  reason  to  complain  of  the 
intrigues  by  which  Sunderland  and  Stanhope  obtained  the 
supreme  power  in  1717;  but  this  does  not  justify  the  factious 
manner  in  which  Walpole  opposed  every  measure  the  new 
ministry  brought  forward — even  the  Mutiny  Act,  wliich  was 
plainly  necessary   to  keep   the  army  in   discipline ;    even  the 


394  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  m. 

repeal  of  the  Occasional  Confonnity  and  Schism  Acts,  though 
he  had  himself  denounced  those  Acts  as  more  like  laws  of  Julian 
the  Apostate  than  of  a  Christian  Legislature.  He  was  sincerely 
tolerant  in  his  disposition,  and  probably  did  as  much  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Dissenters  as  could  have  been  done  without  pro- 
ducing a  violent  and  dangerous  reaction  of  opinion ;  but  he  took 
no  measure  to  lighten  the  burden  of  the  Irish  penal  code,  and  he 
had  no  scruple  in  availing  himself  of  the  strong  feeling  against  the 
English  Catholics  and  Non-jurors  to  raise  100,000^.  by  a  special 
tax  upon  their  estates,  or  in  promising  the  Dissenters  that  he 
would  obtain  the  repeal  of  the  Test  Act,  when  he  had  no  serious 
intention  of  doing  so.  He  warned  the  country  faithfully  against 
the  South  Sea  Scheme,  but  when  his  warning  was  disregarded  he 
proceeded  to  speculate  skilfully  and  successfully  in  it  himself. 
He  laboured  long  and  earnestly  to  prevent  the  Spanish  war, 
which  he  knew  to  be  eminently  impolitic ;  but  when  the  clamours 
of  his  opponents  had  made  it  inevitable  he  determined  that  he 
would  still  remain  at  the  helm,  and  he  accordingly  declared  it 
himself.  He  governed  the  country  mildly  and  wisely,  but  he 
was  resolved  at  all  hazards  to  secure  for  himself  a  complete 
monopoly  of  power;  he  steadily  opposed  the  reconciliation  of 
the  Tories  with  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,*  lest  it  should  impair 
his  ascendency,  surrounded  himself  with  colleagues  whose  facul- 
ties rarely  rose  above  the  tamest  mediocrity,  drove  from  power 
every  man  of  real  talent  who  might  possibly  become  his  rival, 
and  especially  repelled  young  men  of  promise,  character,  and 
ambition,  whom  a  provident  statesman,  desirous  of  perpetuating 
his  policy  beyond  his  lifetime,  would  especially  seek  to  attract. 

The  scandal  and  also  the  evil  effects  of  his  political  vices  were 
greatly  increased  by  that  total  want  of  decorum  which  Burke  has 
justly  noted  as  the  weakest  point  of  his  character.  In  this  respect 
his  public  and  private  life  resembled  one  another.  That  he  lived 
for  many  years  in  open  adultery,  and  indulged  to  excess  in  the 

>  See  the  striking  remarks  of  deemed  a  Jacobite  who  was  not  a 
Speaker  Onslow  on  Walpole's  settled  professed  and  known  Whig.' — Coxes 
'plan    of    having   everybody   to   be       WaI_pole,  ii.  5o4i-5o7 . 


CK.  m.  WANT   OF  DECORUM.  395 

pleasures  of  the  table,  were  facts  which  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  were  in  themselves  not  likely  to  excite  much 
attention ;  but  his  boisterous  revelries  at  Houghton  exceeded 
even  the  ordinary  licence  of  the  country  squires  of  his  time, 
and  the  gross  sensuality  of  his  conversation  was  conspicuous   in 
one  of  the  coarsest  periods  of  English  history.     When  he  did 
not  talk  of  business,  it  Avas  said,  he  talked  of  women ;  politics 
and   obscenity   were    his  tastes.     There    seldom  was  a    Court 
less  addicted  to  prudery  than  that  of  George  II.,  but  even  its 
tolerance  was  somewhat  strained  by  a  minister  who  jested  witli 
the  Queen  upon  the  infidelity  of  her  husband,  who  advised  lier 
on  one  occasion  to  bring  to  Court  a  beautiful  but  silly  woman  as 
a '  safe  fool '  for  the  King  to  fall  in  love  with,  who,  on  the  death 
of  the  Queen,  urged  her  daughters  to  summon  witliout  delay  the 
two  mistresses  of  the  King  in  order  to  distract  the  mind  of  their 
father  ;  who  at  the  same  time  avowed,  with  a  brutal  frankness, 
as  the  scheme  of  his  future  policy,  that  though  he  had  been  for 
the  wife  against  the  mistress,  he  would  be  henceforth  for  the 
mistress  against  the  daughters.^     In  society  he  had  tlie  weak- 
ness of  wishing  to  be  thought  a  man  of  gallantry  and  fashion, 
and  his  awkward  addresses,  rendered  the  more  ludicrous  by  a 
singularly  corpulent  and  ungraceful  person,  as  well  as  the  ex- 
treme coarseness  into  which  he  usually  glided  when  speaking  to 
and  of  women,  di-ew  down  upon  him  much  ridicule  and  some 
contempt.     His  estimate  of  political  integrity  was  very  similar 
to  his  estimate  of  female  virtue.     He  governed  by  means  of 
an  assembly  which  was  saturated  with  corruption,  and  he  fully 
acquiesced  in  its  conditions  and  resisted  every  attempt  to  im- 
prove  it.     He  appears  to  have  cordially  accepted  the  maxim 
that  government  must  be  carried  on  by  corruption  or  by  force, 
and  he  deliberately  made  the  former  the  basis  of  his  rule.     He 
bribed  George  II.  by  obtaining  for  him  a  civil  list  exceeding  by 
more  than  1 00,000L  a  year  that  of  his  father.     He  bribed  the 
Queen  by  securing  for  her  a  jointure  of  100,000?.  a  year,  when 
his  rival.  Sir  Spencer  Compton,  could  only  venture  to  promise 

'  JUemoin  of  Lord  Hervey. 


396  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

60,000^.  He  bribed  the  Dissenting  ministers  to  silence  by  the 
Regium  Donum  for  the  benefit  of  their  widows.  He  employed 
the  vast  patronage  of  the  Crown  uniformly  and  steadily  with  the 
sino-le  view  of  sustaining  his  political  position,  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  immense  expenditure  of 
secret  service  money  during  his  administration  was  devoted  to  the 
direct  purchase  of  Members  of  Parliament. 

It  is  necessary  to  speak  with  much  caution  on  this  matter, 
remembering  that  no  statesman  can  emancipate  himself  from 
the  conditions  of  his  time,  and  that  a  great  injustice  is  done 
when  the  politician  of  one  age  is  measured  by  the  standard  of 
another.  Bribery,  whether  at  elections  or  in  Parliament,  was 
no  new  tiling.  The  systematic  corruption  of  Members  of  Par- 
liament is  said  to  have  begun  under  Charles  II.,  in  whose  reign 
it  was  practised  to  the  largest  extent.  It  was  continued  under 
his  successor,  and  the  number  of  scandals  rather  increased  than 
diminished  after  the  Revolution.  Sir  J.  Trevor — a  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Commons — had  been  voted  guilty  of  a  high  crime 
and  misdemeanour  for  receiving  a  bribe  of  1,000  guineas  from 
the  City  of  London.  A  Secretary  of  the  Treasury — Mr.  Guy 
— had  been  sent  to  the  Tower  for  taking  a  bribe  to  induce  him 
to  pay  the  arrears  due  to  a  regiment.  Lord  Ranelagh,  a  Pay- 
master of  the  Forces,  had  been  expelled  for  defalcations  in  his 
office.  In  order  to  facilitate  the  passing  of  the  South  Sea  Bill,  it 
was  proved  that  large  amounts  of  fictitious  stock  had  been  created, 
distributed  among,  and  accepted  by,  ministers  of  the  Crown.  Ais- 
labie,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  expelled,  sent  to  the 
Tower,  and  fined.  The  younger  Craggs,  who  was  Secretary  of 
State,  probably  only  escaped  by  a  timely  death.  His  father, 
the  Postmaster-Greneral,  avoided  inquiry  by  suicide,  and  grave 
suspicion  rested  upon  Charles  Stanhope,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  upon  Sunderland,  the  Prime  Minister.  When 
such  instances  could  be  cited  from  among  the  leaders  of  politics, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  among  the  undistinguished  Members 
corruption  was  notorious.  In  1698,  a  system  of  fraudulent 
endorsement  of  Exchequer  bills  with  a  view  to  defraud  the 


CH.  III.  PAELIAMENTAKY  COKRUPTION.  397 

revenue  was  discovered,  and  two  Members  of  Parliament  were 
sent  to  the  Tower  and  expelled  for  being  guilty  of  it.  The 
expulsion  of  Hungerford  for  receiving  a  small  sura  for  expedit- 
ing a  private  Bill  through  Parliament,  of  the  two  Shepherds 
for  bribery  at  elections,  of  Sir  E.  Sutton  for  having  through 
carelessness  become  director  of  a  swindling  company,  of  Eidge 
for  the  non-observance  of  a  contract,  of  Colonel  Cardonell 
for  accepting  an  illegal  though  customary  gratuity,  of  Walpole 
himself  for  alleged  dishonesty  about  a  contract,  were  probably 
inspired  chiefly  or  solely  by  factious  motives,^  but  there  can  at 
least  be  no  reasonable  doubt  tliat  parliamentary  corruption  does 
not  date  from  the  ministry  of  AValpole.  Nor  was  he  the  first  to 
practise  largely  corruption  at  elections.  Burnet  assures  us  that 
at  the  elections  of  1701,  when  William  was  still  on  the  throne, 
.'  a  most  scandalous  practice  was  brought  in  of  buying  votes  with 
so  little  decency  that  the  electors  engaged  themselves  by  sub- 
scription to  choose  a  blank  person  before  they  were  trusted  with 
the  name  of  their  candidate.'  ^  I  have  cited  in  the  last  chapter 
the  explicit  testimony  of  Davenant  to  the  magnitude  of  the 
evil  in  his  day,  and  the  writings  of  Defoe  contain  amjile  proof 
of  its  inveteracy  and  of  its  progress.  In  a  pamphlet  published 
in  1701,  he  tells  us  that  there  was  a  regular  set  of  stock-jobbers 
in  the  City  who  made  it  their  business  to  buy  and  sell  seats  in 
Parliament,  that  the  market  price  was  1 ,000  guineas,  and  that 
Parliament  was  thus  in  a  fair  way  of  coming  under  the  manage- 
ment of  a  few  individuals.^  In  1705,  after  adverting  to  some 
Acts  which  had  been  passed  against  bribery,  he  adds  emphati- 
cally, '  Never  was  treating,  bribery,  buying  of  voices,  freedoms 
and  freeholds,  and  all  the  corrupt  practices  in  the  world  so  open 
and  barefaced  as  since  these  severe  laws  were  enacted.'  *     In  1 708 

'  Townsend's  Hist,  of  the  House  passage,  as  well  as  some  others  which 

of  Commons,  ch.  iv.,  v.  I  have  cited  in  the  last  chapter,  when 

*  Burnet's  Oirn  Times,  ii.  258-250.  he  speaks  of  the  purchase  of  seats  of 

*  From  '  The  Freeholder's  Plea  Parliament  as  first  observed  in  the 
against  Stock-jobbing  Elections  of  elections  of  1747  and  1754. —  Const. 
Parliament.' — Wilson's  Life  of  Defoe,  Hist.  iii.  302. 

1,340-341.     Mr.  Hallam   muse  have  *  'Review.'     See  Wilson,  ii.  362. 

somewhat  strangely  overlooked  this 


iSKi  SSIi91L&3r]&  ISf  TBI.  ZM!Btl[TZ3PIB.  CSaRmST,         «k.  nu 

w^  f /^i  yfi&»r  osw^fisssits  ia  PadiiaaMSI  iKn^  «f  tibe  fvifiJIj 
caiVi!^^.^  CTpgMS  «!if  feteatiiww,*  a»4  *te  BmI  <rf  I^scast  fpikfi: 

/of*  sit  jtf  s  s««<siri««»  £8^  *  tfeift  a  gneaiit J^^ 

«»1tsfls  tiralt  dt  <^  901:  €flMl  w^  luMu  Hk  cxpe«fita»  <if 
fttfSKft  serrfoe  ««»(ef,  lai8g?e  sk  i&.  ifm,  asoier  e^fwalledni  aaefml 
^psee  Kif  towe  (tine €iq^«aB!BftnD&  «€  Boate;  jwI  it  k  to  Birit^  ml 

M  <9f  aU  idtt&  fM»w  <9f  Isvibaj^  tibe  OHfecMt  0C  iwniiuft  kaw  «w 
fi«m»  ezJtnK93g^aiiit%r  advsaiagiesaM  to  tibe  ksder,  smI  dMri' 
Imtlsg:  tl£i&  j^Misse  stBKHig:  the  sqppxxitt'^vBF  ^  tibe  adflBnuftertiMiu 
TliMr  &9mML  6€  ITa^^  ess  seaaeefy  te  in&l  to  knre  pmlwei 
erea.  a  iism^msej  ee^rtMn  <9f  esm^tKMu  Im  17^  Sir  X 
BeawasA^  witib  a  Tkw  to  HSm  afpiKadaag  cJeetasaCr  adbnolfy 
fi»9rai  1M  D$f«ai<9f  tine  «eldi  ai^usrt  hdisetf,  im  the  iaUwett  «f 
po&lk  fiMfsafe,  «tt  tibie  gs)9Q»ii  t&st  it  trai  moKlf  tibe:  tieamfim  of 
^oKsal  feijmj,*  Ja.  the  «u»e^  j««r  F'<s  dftdBaad  to  aeiot^ 
£^<»i!a  3r«ir«sM(t]e  tiie  haA  «€  the  H(9n»e  «f  Cwmmmm,  mkw  lie 
tr»f^r>^  ifitfeenBSitiMi  absist  tbe  dfepoiatftwa  (of  Hie  tstut  caries 
msfa^Xf  l«£sn»e,  as  Ik:  sul,  ^  if  be  was  la^  ta  ^^^ 
&«  dkioM  9(9t  kBKSNr  Iik9«rto  talk  to  Utemhea  of  FariiaBaest, 
wfaioi  fiWBe  ifflj^  tare  Reeircd  jfiatifiatftMC,  (odieis  woC* 
TecT  fev  ftatoasBea  «f  tibe  eaj^bteeadi  eestmr  Ind  ]e»  satanl 
t^sdeasj  to  conaftitsn  dben  ^iSBe,    His  private 

«i)iata>e8«r  was  muaqpfiadbaye,     <>^^  -..^   '..;»<»  «€  tlsie  anatieef 
Ifjis^  ewfaEsted  diestioas  aas  a  gi%at  step  toa^^ 
{^i9B  <9f  Paslssuaeirt,  asd  tibe  expesditace  Glmewei  senrice  BMaef 


CR.  m.  COEElTnOS  OF  "WALPOLE.  399 

d-urinr;^  iiis  admirdstration  was  unuinially  lo-w ;  ^  yet  snch  -was.  tihe 
conditjciii  of  the  LegitlaTure  Ly  •rliich  be  governed,  that  he 
:iT'peiars  to  have  fouiid  it  neoessary  to  c>ffer  direct  money 
Lrities  eTfcii  to  Memliers  of  the  Hoaae  of  Lords.'  If  "Wa]jiole 
■was  grulty  of  corruptioB,  it  may  le  fairly  nrg«>d  that  it  iras 
scarcely  pos-dlde  to  manage  Parliament  "without  it,  and  also  that 
skilful  ■writ.ers,  under  tlie  guidance  of  Bolinghroke,  were  studi- 
ouiJy  aggraratiTig  his  faults.  He  iras,  no  doubt,  c»ft.en  mis- 
represented- His  saying  of  a  group  of  Memliers,  *A11  these 
men  hare  their  price^'  "was  turned  into  a  general  assertion  that 
*  all  men  have  their  price  ;'  and  there  vas  probaLly  some  truth 
in  anc>thej-  saying  ascribed  to  him, — '  tiiat  he  iras  obliged  to 
brilie  >!embers  nc>t  to  vote  against,  l»ut  for  their  conscience.' 
Althc)Ugh  in  the  case  c»f  a  minister  "who  had  rery  few  scruples, 
and  who  disposed,  al:»3olut*Jy  for  many  }'ears,  of  immense  sums 
of  secret  service  money,  it  is  impossible  to  sjteak  with  cc>nfi- 
denoe,  we  may  at  least  affirm  that  there  is  no  real  evidence 
that  WaJf»ole  dishonestly  appropriated  public  money  to  his  own 
purjioses,  and  he  retired  from  office  deeply  in  debt. 

The  real  charge  against  him  is  that  in  a  period  of  jtrofound 
peace,  when  he  exercised  an  almost  unexampled  ascendency 
in  T'  '  ■'       ..lid  when  public  opinion  was  strongly  in  favour  of 

the an  of  corrupt  influence  in  Parliament,  he  stt^adily 

and  sucoessfoDy  resisted  every   attempt  at  reform-      Other 
..ij  have  bril»ed    on  a  larger  scale  to    ,  .ue 

:,  or  in  moments  of  transitic>n,  crisis,  <;.  ..j. 

'    GrmrilU  Cnrrefjipndfn.pt.,  iii.  ji.       Tr>  «*'h'Tw  1>.<»  iri-tjr«a7-Tty  r-f  ^57  "irnrds 

34-a.  (:...  '  —ss 

•  Tbe  foBoiriiip  v«T  cmioM  note      t :  -fd 

.  .  -i-^ 

■;••:•  rrJent'u  Id  wus  uui        t>r  jLiti.     i  c>aT  mciM.  C'tiuirea  ana  most 

'.-.■.■■^  .,e.T  mjii^tiiLl  or  uisilIi-       C"t>£idjfciil  sf-rvam.       Sate  it  Seul 

iiig  :—  '  P.S.     As  &  frt*  LciTse   tiwids  do 

'  LchkIdii,  X  ot.  2C,  1 76S.  sf>BT,  so  I  si  And  in  iiaed  of  no  indjjoe- 

•■"  ^'-      T   •-  '        ■'   ' ^    --     -all 

is 

me  m,  wiucn  1  j/xize  more  i.rntTi  rxic  trretimi.it  CftrrtnipPTuitniv,  ru.  145- 
Ina-aiive  adTKiiiAfi'fc  I  then  receivfd.       146. 


lOO  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  iii. 

It  was  left  to  Walpole  to  organise  corruption  as  a  system,  and 
to  make  it  the  normal  process  of  Parliamentary  government. 
It  was  his  settled  policy  to  maintain  his  Parliamentary  majority, 
not  by  attracting  to  his  ministry  great  orators,  great  writers, 
great  financiers,  or  great  statesmen,  not  by  effecting  any  com- 
bination or  coalition  of  parties,  by  identifying  himself  with  any 
great  object  of  popular  desire,  or  by  winning  to  his  side  young 
men  in  whose  character  and  ability  he  could  trace  the  promise 
of  future  eminence,  but  simply  by  engrossing  borough  influence 
and  extending  the  patronage  of  the  Crown.  Material  motives 
were  the  only  ones  he  recognised.  During  several  successive 
Parliaments  the  majority  of  the  counties  were  usually  in  oppo- 
sition.^ It  was  by  the  purchase  of  a  multitude  of  small  and 
perfectly  venal  boroughs,  especially  in  Cornwall  and  Scotland, 
that  the  Government  majority  was  maintained.  Whenever 
there  was  a  choice  between  a  man  of  ability  and  a  man  posses- 
sino-  large  borough  influence,  the  latter  was  invariably  preferred. 
Thus  it  was  that  in  1724  Carteret  was  displaced  from  the 
Secretaiyship  of  War,  and  the  claims  of  Pulteney  were  neglected 
in  order  that  Walpole  might  attach  to  his  fortunes  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  who  was  the  greatest  borough-owner  in  the  kingdom, 
but  whose  weak  and  timid  character  he  was  the  first  to  ridicule. 
Thus  it  was  that  he  met  and  defeated  every  effort  to  reduce 
the  pension  lists,  and  to  enquire  into  the  corruption  of  Parlia- 
ment. He  made  it,  said  one  who  knew  him  well,  a  main 
object  at  all  times,  and  on  all  occasions,  to  prevent  Parlia- 
mentary enquiries.'  Pension  Bill  after  Pension  Bill  was 
brought  in  with  the  strong  support  of  public  opinion.  Some- 
times he  openly  opposed  them.  More  frequently  he  suffered 
them  to  pass  the  Commons,  and  employed  his  influence  to 
stifle  them  in  the  Lords.  Always  he  made  it  his  object  to  dis- 
courage and  defeat  them.  He  constructed  a  system  under 
which  a  despotic  sovereign  or  minister  might  make  a  Parlia- 
mentary  majority   one    of  the  most  subservient  and  efiScient 

'  See  a  remarkable  statement  of  Horace  Walpole.     Menwirs  of  George  II. 
i.  406.  2  Lord  Hervey's  Memoirs,  i.  224. 


CH.  in.  CORRUPTION   OF  WALPOLE.  401 

instruments  for  destroying  the  liberties  of  England ;  and 
although  he  himself  used  it  with  signal  moderation,  he 
bequeathed  it  intact  to  his  successors,  and  it  became,  under 
George  III.,  the  great  instrument  of  misgovernment. 

His  influence  upon  young  men  appears  to  have  been  pecu- 
liarly pernicious.  If  we  may  believe  Chesterfield,  he  was 
accustomed  to  ask  them  in  a  tone  of  irony  upon  their  entrance 
into  Parliament  whether  they  too  were  going  to  be  saints  or 
Eomans,  and  he  employed  all  the  weight  of  his  position  to 
make  them  regard  purity  and  patriotism  as  ridiculous  or  un- 
manly.* Of  the  next  generation  of  statesmen,  Fox,  the  first 
Lord  Holland,  was  the  only  man  of  remarkable  ability  who  can 
be  said  to  have  been  his  disciple,  and  he  was,  perhaps,  the  most 
corrupt  and  unscrupulous  of  the  statesmen  of  his  age. 

Specific  instances  of  Parliamentary  corruption  are  a  class  of 
facts  little  likely  to  pass  into  the  domain  of  history.  The 
secret  nature  of  the  act,  the  interests  both  of  the  giver  and  the 
recipient,  and  the  general  tone  and  feelings  of  the  politicians  of 
the  time,  conspire  to  conceal  them,  and  although  public  opinion 
forced  on  an  enquiry  into  the  acts  of  Walpole,  and  although  the 
great  majority  of  the  commissioners  were  his  personal  enemies, 
no  considerable  results  were  arrived  at.  Nor  was  this  surprising. 
The  whole  influence  of  the  Crown  and  of  the  House  of  Lords 
was  exerted  to  shield  the  fallen  minister,  and  there  was  on  the 
part  of  most  leading  politicians,  and,  indeed,  of  most  Members 
of  Parliament,  a  marked  indisposition  to  enquire  too  curiously 
into  such  matters.  Edgecumbe,  who  chiefly  managed  the 
Cornish  boroughs,  was  made  a  peer  expressly  for  the  purpose  of 
preventing  the  Committee  from  requiring  his  evidence.^  The 
oflBcials  who  distributed  the  secret  service  money  positively 
refused  to  give  any  evidence  as  to  the  manner  of  its  distribu- 
tion, on  the  ground  that  they  might  otherwise  criminate  them- 
selves. The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  could  probably 
have  thrown  most  light  upon  the  subject,  as  the  whole  secret 

'  Chesterfield's  Migcellaneous  Works  -  Walpole's  Letters,  i.  p.  175, 

(ed.  177D),  iv.  append,  p.  36 

VOL.  I.  27 


402  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  in. 

service  money  passed  through  his  hands,  declined  to  take  the 
oath  of  discovery,  and  informed  the  Committee  '  that  he  had 
laid  his  case  before  the  King,  and  was  authorised  to  say  that  the 
disposal  of  money  issued  for  secret  service,  by  the  nature  of  it, 
requires  the  utmost  secrecy,  and  is  accountable  to  his  Majesty 
alone  ;  and  therefore  his  Majesty  could  not  permit  him  to  dis- 
close anything  on  the  subject.'  ^  The  Committee  were  completely 
baffled.  Those  who  distributed  the  secret  service  money  refused 
to  give  any  evidence,  and  it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that 
those  who  received  it  would  criminate  themselves  by  confession. 
A  Bill  was  brought  forward  to  indemnify  the  recipients  of  bribes 
if  they  gave  evidence  against  Walpole,  but  though  it  passed 
the  Commons,  it  was  rejected  by  the  Lords.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances we  can  hardly  lay  much  stress  upon  the  fact  that 
the  discoveries  of  the  Committee  were  chiefly  of  the  most  trivial 
description.  The  bestowal  of  places  on  the  Mayor  of  Weymouth 
and  on  his  brother-in-law,  in  order  to  secure  the  nomination 
of  a  favourable  returning  officer  at  an  election,  the  removal 
of  a  few  revenue  officers  who  failed  to  vote  for  a  ministerial 
candidate,  the  distribution  of  some  small  sums  for  borough 
prosecutions  and  suits,  the  somewhat  suspiciously  liberal  terms 
of  a  contract  for  the  payment  of  British  troops  at  Jamaica,  were 
all  matters  which  appeared  of  little  moment  when  they  were 
regarded  as  the  result  of  a  solemn  enquiry  into  ministerial 
proceedings  for  ten  years.  Much  more  important  was  the  dis- 
covery that  in  this  space  of  time  no  less  than  1,453,400L  had  been 
expended  in  secret  service  money,  and  that  of  that  sum  above 
50,000^.  had  been  paid  to  writers  in  defence  of  the  ministry. 
It  has  been  shown,  indeed,  by  the  apologists  for  Walpole  that  the 
secret  service  money  included  the  whole  pension  list,  as  well 
as  the  large  sums  necessarily  expended  in  obtaining  informa- 
tion at  foreign  Courts,  and  also  that  the  comparisons  insti- 
tuted between  the  expenditure  of  secret  service  money  in  the 
last  ten   years  of   Walpole,    and  that  in  an   equal  portion  of 

'  Coxe's  Walpole,  i.  p.  712. 


(•H.  III.  CORRUPTION   OF  WALPOLE.  403 

the  reign  of  Anne,  were  in  several  respects  fallacious  ;^  but  there 
cannot,  I  think,  be  much  reasonable  doubt,  though  the  Com- 
mittee were  unable  to  obtain  evidence  on  the  subject,  that 
much  of  it  was  expended  in  Parliamentary  corruption.  It  is 
said  that  supporters  of  the  Government  frequently  received  at 
the  close  of  the  session  from  500^  to  1,000^.  for  their  services  ;* 
that  Walpole  himself  boasted  that  one  important  division  re- 
jecting the  demand  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  for  an  increased 
allowance  cost  the  Grovernment  only  900^,'  that  more  than 
half  the  members  of  Parliament  were  in  the  receipt  of  public 
money  in  the  form  of  pensions  or  Grovernment  offices.^  It  is 
certain  that  the  consentient  opinion  of  contemporaries  accused 
the  ministers  of  gross  and  wholesale  corruption,  and  that 
they  uniformly  opposed  every  enquiry  that  could  vindicate  their 
honour,  and  every  Bill  that  could  tend  to  pm-ify  the  Parlia- 
ment. 

The  complaints  of  the  Opposition  were  met  by  Walpole 
in  a  strain  of  coarse  and  cynical  banter.  Patriots,  saints, 
Spartans,  and  boys  were  the  terms  he  continually  employed. 
Something,  no  doubt,  was  due  to  the  strong  hatred  of  cant 
which  was  a  prominent  feature  of  his  character,  and  which 
sometimes  led  him,  like  his  great  contemporary  Swift,  into  the 

'  See   the    elaborate    chapter    in  Memoirs  (1815),  ii.  498,  500. 
Coxe,  on  the  report  of  the  Committee.  *  'Sir  R.  AValpole  and  the  Queen 

^  Almon's  Anecdotes  of  Chatham,  botli  told  me  separately  that  it  fthe 

vol.  i.  p.  137.     This  was   written  of  ministerial   triumph]  cost  the  King 

the  Pelham  ministry,  but  that  ministry  but  900^. — 500/.  to  one  man  and  400/. 

only  continued  in  a  somewhat  more  to  another;  and  that  even  these  two 

moderate  form  the  system  of  Walpole.  sums  n-cre  only  advanced  to  two  men, 

Wraxall      positively      asserts      that  who  n-ere  to  have  received  them  at  the 

Roberts,  who   was    Secretary  of   the  end  of  the  session  had  this  question. 

Treasury    under    Pelham,  assured  a  7iever  been  moved,  and  who  only  took 

friend,  from  whom  Wraxall  received  this   opportunity    to    solicit  prompt 

the  story,  that  he,  Roberts,  while  he  payment.' — Lord   Hervey's   Memoirs 

remained  at  the  Treasury  regularly  ii.  280. 

paid  secret  stipends    varying  from  *  Some  interesting  facts   on   the 

500Z.  to  800?.  to  a  number  of  Members  fluctuations  of  the  number  of  place- 

at  the   end  of   each   session.     Their  men   in   Parliament   will   be    foimd 

names  were  entered  in  a  book  which  in    Brougham's   great  speech  on  the 

was  kept  in  the  deepest  secrecy  and  increasing   influence   of  the    Crown, 

which  on  the  death  of    Pelham  was  June  24,  1822, 
burnt  by  the  King.' — See  Wraxall's 


404  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY  ch.  hi. 

opposite  extreme  of  cynicism.  He  knew  that  he  was  speaking 
the  secret  sentiments  of  the  great  majority  of  his  hearers,  that 
among  the  declaimers  against  corruption  were  some  of  the  most 
treacherous  and  unprincipled  politicians  of  the  time,  and  that 
personal  disappointment  and  baffled  ambition  had  their  full 
share  in  swelling  the  ranks  of  his  opponents ;  but  when  every 
allowanca  is  made  for  this,  his  language  must  appear  gi-ossly 
culpable.  He  profoundly  lowered  the  moral  tone  of  public 
life,  and  thus,  as  an  acute  observer  has  said,  '  While  he  seemed 
to  strengthen  the  superstructure,  he  weakened  the  foundations 
of  our  constitution.'  ^  Nor  is  it  true  that  the  politicians  of  the 
time  were  universally  corrupt.  Godolphin  and  Bolingbroke 
had  both  retired  from  their  ministerial  careers  poor  men. 
Oxford  was  in  this  respect  beyond  all  reproach.  Neither  Pul- 
teney,  nor  Windham,  nor  Onslow,  nor  Carteret,  nor  Shippen, 
nor  Barnard,  nor  Pitt,  whatever  their  other  faults,  could  be 
suspected  of  personal  corruption.  Above  all,  there  was  the  public 
opinion  of  England  which  was  deeply  scandalised  by  the 
extent  to  which  parliamentary  corruption  had  arisen,  and  by 
the  cynicism  with  which  it  was  avowed,  and  on  this  point, 
though  on  this  alone,  Walpole  never  respected  it.  Like  many 
men  of  low  morals  and  of  coarse  and  prosaic  natures,  he  was 
altogether  incapable  of  appreciating  as  an  element  of  political 
calculation  the  force  which  moral  sentiments  exercise  upon 
mankind,  and  this  incapacity  was  one  of  the  great  causes  of 
his  fall.  His  own  son  has  made  the  memorable  admission  that 
Walpole  '  never  was  thought  honest  till  he  was  out  of  power.' ^ 

Through  these  faults,  as  well  as  through  the  discontent  which 
always  follows  the  great  prolongation  of  a  single  administration, 
a  powerful  though  heterogeneous  Opposition  was  gradually 
formed,  and  the  small  band  of  Tories  were  reinforced  by  a  con- 
siderable section  of  discontented  Whigs,  who  seceded  under  the 
guidance  of  Pulteney,  Carteret,  and  Chesterfield,  and  by  several 
young  men  of  promise  or  genius.     Pulteney,  who  usually  led 

'  Browne's  Estimate,  i.  p.  115. 

*  Walpole's  Memoirs  of  George  II.  i.  236. 


CH.  111.  PULTENEY  AND  CARTERET,  405 

the  phalanx,  had  been  for  many  years  the  friend  and  colleague 
of  Walpole.  He  had  co-operated  with  him  during  the  depres- 
sion of  the  party  under  Queen  Anne,  defended  him  when  he  was 
expelled  from  the  House  in  1712,  assumed  the  office  of  Secretary 
of  War  in  the  "SMiig  ministry  of  1714,  taken  the  same  side  with 
Walpole  in  the  Whig  schism  of  1 71 7,  and  he  appeared  at  one  time 
likely  to  rise  at  least  as  high  in  the  State.  He  was  a  country 
gentleman  of  good  character,  old  family,  and  large  property, 
a  scholar,  a  writer,  and  a  wit,  and  probably  the  most  gracefid 
and  brilliant  speaker  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  interval 
between  the  withdrawal  of  St.  John  and  the  appearance  of  Pitt. 
His  separation  from  Walpole  appears  to  have  been  wholly  due  to 
personal  motives.  Possessing  abilities  and  parliamentary  stand- 
ing which  entitled  him,  in  his  own  opinion  and  in  the  opinion  of 
many  others,  to  rank  as  the  equal  of  Walpole,  he  found  that 
Walpole  allowed  his  colleagues  little  more  influence  than  if  they 
were  his  clerks,  and  was  always  seeking,  by  direct  or  indirect 
means,  to  displace  them  when  they  became  prominent.  He  is 
said  to  have  been  bitterly  ofifended  when  Carteret,  having  in 
1724  resigned  the  position  of  Secretary  of  State,  the  claims  of 
Newcastle  were  preferred  to  his  own,  and  the  offer  of  a  peerage, 
which  was  intended  only  to  remove  him  from  the  centre  of 
power,  and  afterwards  of  a  very  unimportant  place,  completed 
his  alienation.  He  went  into  violent  opposition,  rejected  scorn- 
fully the  overtures  of  the  minister,  who  when  too  late  perceived 
his  error,  dedicated  all  his  powers  to  the  subversion  of  the 
administration,  and  became  the  most  skilful  exponent  of  the 
popular  feeling  about  the  corruption  of  Parliament,  the  subser- 
vience of  Walpole  to  France  and  to  Spain,  and  the  dangers  of 
a  standing  army  in  time  of  peace.  He  was  bitterly  opposed 
to  the  Gallican  sympathies  of  Walpole,  and  especially  to  the 
Treaty  of  Hanover,  and  was  for  some  time  in  very  close  and 
confidential  communication  with  the  ministers  of  the  Emperor.^ 
Of  all  the  opponents  of  Walpole  he  was  probably  the  most  for- 

'  See   the   intercepted  letters  of  Coimt  Palm  printed  in  Coxe's  Life  of 
Walpole. 


406  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

midable,  for  he  seems  to  have  been  at  least  his  equal  as  a 
debater ;  his  great  social  talents  made  him  popular  among  poli- 
ticians, and  he  at  the  same  time  exercised  a  powerful  influence 
beyond  the  walls  of  Parliament.  '  The  Craftsman,'  which  for 
many  years  contained  the  bitterest  and  ablest  attacks  on  Wal- 
pole,  was  foimded,  inspired,  and  perhaps  in  part  written '  by 
Pulteney  in  conjunction  with  Bolingbroke.  He  was  also  the 
author  of  two  or  three  pamphlets  of  more  than  ordinary  merit, 
of  several  happy  witticisms  which  are  still  remembered,  and  of 
a  political  song  which  was  once  among  the  most  popular  in  the 
language.^  When  accused  of  being  actuated  in  his  opposition 
by  sordid  motives,  he  incautiously  pledged  himself  never  again 
to  accept  office,  and  in  the  hour  of  his  triumph  he  remembered 
his  pledge ;  but  he  cannot  be  acquitted  of  having  shaped  his 
career  through  a  feeling  of  personal  rancour,  he  never  exhibited 
either  the  business  talents  or  the  tact  and  prescience  of  states- 
manship so  conspicuous  in  his  rival,  and  he  probably  contributed 
more  than  any  other  single  man  to  plunge  the  country  into  the 
Spanish  war. 

A  more  remarkable  man,  but  a  less  formidable  politician, 
was  Carteret,  afterwards  Lord  Granville,  who  at  the  time  of  the 
downfall  of  Walpole  led  the  Whig  Opposition  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  He  had  entered  the  Upper  House  in  1711,  had  joined  the 
Simderland  section  of  the  WTiigs  in  1717,  had  been  appointed 
ambassador  to  Sweden  in  the  following  year,  and  had  afterwards 
accepted  several  brief  diplomatic  missions  in  Germany  and 
France.  On  the  death  of  Svmderland  he  made  some  unsuc- 
cessful efforts  to  perpetuate  the  division  of  the  party,  but  his 
opposition  to  Walpole  was  at  first  rather  latent  than  avowed. 
He  became  Secretary  of  State  in  1721,  but,  disagreeing  with 

'  Horace  Walpole   (to  H.  Mann,  phleteer,  this  story  seems  very  im- 

April  27, 1753)  asserts  that  the  printer  probable. 

of  the  '  Craftsman '  assured  him  Pul-  *  '  The   Honest   Jury  ;    or,    Caleb 

teney  'never  wrote  a    "Craftsman"  Triumphant,' written  on  the  occasion 

himself,  only  gave  hints  for  them,'  of  the  acquittal  of  the  '  Craftsman '  on 

though  much  of  his  reputation   was  a  charge  of  libel. —  Wilkins'  Collection 

founded  upon  them.    As  Pulteney  was  of  Political  Ballads,  ii.  232-236. 
confessedly  a  skilful  writer  and  pam- 


CH.  in.  CAETEKET.  407 

his  colleague  Lord  Townshend,  he  was  compelled  to  relinquish 
the  post  in  1724,  when  he  became  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 
After  several  differences  with  the  ministry  in  England  he  re- 
signed this  appointment  in  1730,  and  from  that  time  became  a 
leader  of  Opposition  and  a  close  ally  of  Pulteney.  Of  all  the 
leading  English  statesmen  of  the  eighteenth  century  he  is, 
perhaps,  the  one  of  whose  real  merits  it  is  most  diflScult  to 
speak  with  confidence.  Like  Charles  Townshend  in  the  next 
generation,  he  was  a  man  who  had  the  very  highest  reputation 
for  ability  among  his  contemporaries,  but  whose  ability  we  are 
obliged  to  take  altogether  upon  trust,  for,  except  some  unpub- 
lished despatches,  often  full  of  fire  and  force,  and  a  few  detached 
sayings,  he  has  left  no  monument  behind  him.  His  career  was, 
on  the  whole,  unsuccessful.  His  speeches  have  perished.  His 
policy  has  come  down  to  us  chiefly  through  the  representations 
of  his  opponents,  and  he  himself  appears  to  have  taken  no  part 
in  political  literature.  Yet  Horace  Walpole  and  Chesterfield, 
who  disliked  him,  have  both  spoken  of  him  as  the  ablest  man 
of  his  time.*  Swift  and  Smollett  have  expressed  warm  admira- 
tion for  his  genius,  and  Chatham,  who  was  at  one  time  his 
bitter  opponent,  has  left  on  record  his  opinion  that  in  the  upper 
departments  of  Government  he  had  no  equal.'^  In  the  range 
and  variety  of  his  knowledge  he  was  unrivalled  among  the  poli- 
ticians of  his  time,  and  the  singular  versatility  of  his  intellect 
made  him  almost  equally  conspicuous  as  an  orator,  a  linguist, 
a  statesman,  a  scholar,  and  a  wit.  Having  travelled  much  in 
Germany,  he  was  probably  the  only  English  statesman  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  its  laws,  manners,  and  internal  politics ; 
and  his  thorough  knowledge  of  the  language,  tlien  a  very 
.rare  accomplishment  in  England,  gave  him  a  special  influence 
with  the  Hanoverian  kings.     In  Parliament  he  was  placed,  by 

'  '  Lord   Granville,   they   say,   is  him  to  be  a  greater  genius  than  Sir 

dying.     When    lie     dies    the    ablest  K.  Walpole,  Mansfield,  or  Chatham.' 

head  in  England  dies  too,  take  him  ■ — Memoirs  of  George  II.  iii.  85. 

for  all   in  all.'— Chesterfield  to  his  -  Pari.  Ilist.  xvi.  1097.  He  added, 

son,    Dec.    13,    1762.      See,   too,   his  'I  feel  a  pride  in  declaring  that  to 

admirable   portrait  of    Granville   in  his  patronage,  to  his  friendship  and 

his  *  Chara^iers.'  Walpole  pronounced  instruction,  I  owe  whatever  I  am.' 


408  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ca.  ra. 

the  confession  of  all  parties,  in  the  foremost  rank  of  debaters, 
but  good  judges  complained  that  his  eloquence  was  somewhat 
tm-gid  and  declamatory  in  its  style,  that  he  was  more  to  be 
dreaded  as  an  opponent  than  to  be  desired  as  a  colleague, 
and  that  he  was  almost  equally  unfitted,  by  his  defects  and  by 
his  merits,  for  the  position  of  a  parliamentary  leader.  He 
was  of  a  careless,  sanguine,  impulsive,  and  desultory  nature, 
easily  and  extravagantly  elated  and  never  depressed,  delight- 
ing in  intrigue  and  in  strokes  of  sudden  and  brilliant  daring, 
but  apt  to  treat  politics  as  a  game,  and  almost  wholly  destitute 
of  settled  principles,  fixity  of  purpose,  and  earnestness  of  char- 
acter. His  mind  teemed  with  large  schemes,  and  he  could 
carry  them  out  with  courage  and  with  skill,  but  he  was  no*" 
equally  expert  in  dealing  with  details,  and  he  looked  with  a 
contempt  which  had  at  least  an  affinity  to  virtue  upon  the 
arts  of  management,  conciliation,  and  corruption,  by  which 
Walpole  and  Pelham  secured  their  Parliamentary  influence. 
'  \\Tiat  is  it  to  me,'  he  once  said,  '  who  is  a  judge  or  who  a 
bishop  ?  It  is  my  business  to  make  kings  and  emperors,  and  to 
maintain  the  balance  of  Etu-ope.'  His  temper  was  naturally 
imperious.  He  was  entirely  indifierent  to  money.  He  drank 
hard.  He  overflowed  mth  riotous  animal  spirits,  scoffed  and 
ranted  at  his  colleagues  or  treated  them  with  the  most  super- 
cilious contempt ;  and  though  he  could  be  at  times  the  most 
generous  and  engaging  of  men,  though  no  other  statesman  bore 
defeat  with  such  unforced  good  humour,  or  showed  himself  so 
free  from  rancom-  against  his  opponents,  he  was  not  popular  in 
the  Cabinet  and  not  trusted  in  Parliament.  To  the  King,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  was  eminently  acceptable.  He  succeeded  in  very 
skilfully  flattering  and  almost  winning  the  Queen  at  the  very  time 
when  he  was  a  leading  counsellor  in  the  rival  party  of  her  son. 
He  had  a  strong  natural  leaning,  intensified  by  education,  to  high 
monarchical  views.  He  would  gladly  have  based  his  power  alto- 
gether on  royal  favour ;  he  delighted  in  framing  his  measiures  with 
the  King  alone,  and  was  the  only  English  statesman  who  fully 
shared  and  perhaps  fully  understood  the  King's  German  policy. 


CH.  III.  C.IRTEKET.  409 

It  was  natural  that  his  rare  knowledge  of  Continental  affairs 
should  have  invested  them  in  his  eyes  with  an  interest  and  an 
attraction  they  did  not  possess  in  the  eyes  of  ordinary  poli- 
ticians, and  that  he  should  have  found  in  them  a  field  peculiarly 
congenial  to  his  daring  and  adventurous  nature.  '  I  want  to 
instil  a  nobler  ambition  into  you,'  he  said  to  Fox  in  later  years, 
'  to  make  you  knock  the  heads  of  the  kings  of  Europe  together, 
and  jumble  something  out  of  it  which  may  be  of  service  to  this 
country.'  As  minister  of  a  despotic  sovereign  he  might  have 
risen  to  great  eminence,  but  he  was  not  suited  for  the  condi- 
tions of  Parliamentary  government,  and  he  usually  inclined 
towards  unpopular  opinions.  Thus  he  was  one  of  the  most 
powerful  opponents  of  the  Militia  Bill  at  a  time  when  the 
creation  of  a  great  militia  had  almost  become  a  national  craze. 
He  was  accustomed  to  assert  strongly  the  dignity  of  the  House 
of  Lords  in  opposition  to  the  House  of  Commons.  He  ruined 
his  political  prospects  by  his  bold  advocacy  of  Hanoverian 
measures.  The  last  public  words  he  is  recorded  to  have  uttered 
were  a  stern  rebuke  to  Pitt  for  having  spoken  of  himself  rather 
as  the  minister  of  the  people  than  of  the  Crown,  and  for  having 
thus  introduced  the  language  of  the  House  of  Commons  into 
the  discussions  of  the  Cabinet ;  and  his  last  recorded  political 
judgment  was  an  approbation  of  the  unpopular  Peace  of  Paris. 
His  ambition,  like  his  other  qualities,  was  very  spasmodic.  He 
could  cast  aside  its  prizes  with  a  frank  and  laughing  carelessness 
that  few  could  rival,  but  when  heated  with  the  contest  he  was 
accused  of  being  equally  capable  of  a  policy  of  the  most  reck- 
less daring  and  of  the  most  paltry  intrigue.  Queen  Caroline, 
reviewing  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition,  said  that  Bolino-broke 
would  tell  great  lies,  Chesterfield  small  ones,  Carteret  both 
kinds.* 

'  Tlie  principal  materials  for  de-  hwgraphy   of  Shelburne.     Many  vol- 

f  cribing  Carteret  arc  to  be  found  in  nmes  and  papers  belonging  to  him  are 

Horace    Walpole's   Letters  and  Ilis-  in  the  British  Museum.     It  appears 

tories.  Lord  Hervey's  J/e;«oir«,  Ches-  from    Lord    Hervey's   Memoirs   that 

terfield's  Characters,  Lady  Hervey's  Carteret  was  at  one  time  occupied 

Letters,  Sir  Hanbujy  Williams'  Songs,  with  a  history  of  his  own  time,  but  it 

and    the    recently    published  Auto-  has  unfortunately  never  appeared. 


410  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

Of  Chesterfield  it  is  not  necessary  to  say  much,  for  his  part 
in  the  overthrow  of  Walpole  was  much  less  prominent.  He 
was  naturally  most  fitted  to  shine  in  a  drawing-room,  and 
though  a  graceful  and  accomplished,  if  somewhat  laboured, 
speaker,  his  political  talents,  like  those  of  Sir  W.  Temple  in  the 
preceding  generation,  were  more  adapted  for  diplomacy  than  for 
parliamentary  life.  He  was  twice  ambassador  to  Holland  and 
discharged  his  duties  with  great  ability  and  success'.  During 
his  short  viceroyalty  in  Ireland  he  showed  very  remarkable  ad- 
ministrative talents,  and  his  letters  to  his  illegitimate  son,  which 
were  published  contrary  to  his  desire,  furnish  ample  evidence  of 
his  delicate  but  fastidious  taste,  of  his  low  moral  principle, 
and  of  his  hard,  keen,  and  worldly  wisdom.  His  life  was  dark- 
ened by  much  private  sorrow,  which  he  bore  with  great  courage  ; 
and  his  political  prospects  were  blasted  by  the  hostility  of  the 
Queen,  who  never  forgave  him  for  having  made  his  court  to  the 
mistress  of  her  husband.  Lord  Hervey,  comparing  him  to 
Carteret,  says  that  Carteret  had  the  better  public  and  Court 
understanding,  Chesterfield  the  better  private  and  social  one. 
His  hostility  to  Walpole  dates  from  his  dismissal  from  office 
after  the  Excise  scheme.  On  the  fall  of  that  minister  he  pressed 
on  the  measures  against  him  much  more  violently  than  either 
Pulteney  or  Carteret. 

In  addition  to  these  older  politicians,  the  ranks  of  the 
opponents  of  Walpole  contained  a  small  group  of  young,  men 
who  did  not  altogether  coalesce  with  either  party,  and  who 
were  much  ridiculed  under  the  name  of  '  Boy  Patriots,'  but  who 
reckoned  in  their  number  several  men  of  credit  and  ability, 
and  one  man  of  the  most  splendid  and  majestic  genius.  The 
principal  members  of  this  party  were  Lord  Cob]\am,  Lyttleton, 
George  Grenville,  and,  above  all,  William  Pitt.  This  last 
politician  had  entered  Parliament  for  Old  Sarum  in  1735.  He 
was  still  a  very  young  and  very  poor  man,  holding  the  post  of 
cornet  in  a  regiment  of  dragoons,  entirely  destitute  of  the  in- 
fluence which  springs  from  rank,  experience,  or  Parliamentary 
connection,  but  already  distinguished  for  the  lofty  purity  of  his 


CB.  III.  THE  TORY   OPPOSITION.  411 

character  and  for  an  eloquence  which,  in  its  full  maturity,  has, 
prohahly,  never  been  equalled  in  England  and  never  been  sur- 
passed among  mankind. 

The  Tory  wing  of  the  Opposition  appears  to  have  been 
numerically  about  equal  to  the  "Whig  one.  It  consisted  of 
about  110  members,  but  it  was  far  from  unanimous.  One  sec- 
tion was  distinctly  Jacobite,  and  it  was  the  policy  of  Govern- 
ment to  attribute  Jacobitism  to  the  whole ;  but  with  many, 
Toryism  was,  probably,  mainly  a  matter  of  family  tradition,  and 
consisted  chiefly  of  attachment  to  the  Established  Church,  and 
dislike  to  Hanoverian  politics,  to  the  moneyed  interests,  and  to 
septennial  parliaments.  The  party  had  for  many  years  a  skilful 
and  eloquent  leader  in  Sir  W.  Windham — the  son-in-law  of  the 
Duke  of  Somerset— who  had  been  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
under  Queen  Anne,  and  who  in  that  capacity  had  brought  for- 
ward and  carried  the  Schism  Act.  His  death  in  1740  was  a 
great  blow  to  the  Opposition,  and  his  successor.  Lord  Grower, 
afterwards  abandoned  the  party.  Among  the  Members  who 
usually  acted  with  the  Tories  was  Sir  John  Barnard,  a  retired 
merchant,  who  had  acquired  great  influence  in  the  House  as 
the  only  man  capable  of  coping  with  Walpole-  on  questions  of 
finance,  and  the  party  included  Shippen,  the  able  and  honest 
leader  of  the  Jacobites.  It  consisted,  for  the  most  part,  of 
country  squires  of  little  education  and  strong  prejudices,  but 
in  general  superior  to  their  allies  in  rectitude  of  purpose  and 
sincerity  of  conviction. 

In  addition  to  the  parliamentary  combatants  there  is  another 
influence  to  be  mentioned.  Bolingbroke,  though  excluded 
from  the  parliamentary  arena,  had,  as  I  have  said,  devoted  his 
great  experience  and  his  brilliant  pen  to  the  service  of  the 
Opposition,  and  in  one  respect  at  least  his  policy  was  now  the 
exact  opposite  to  that  which  he  had  pursued  under  Anne.  He 
had  then,  in  opposition  to  Oxford,  endeavoured  to  make  the 
lines  of  party  division  as  clear  and  strong  as  possible,  to  put 
an  end  to  the  system  of  divided  administrations,  and  to  expel 
all  Whigs  from  the  Government.     Now,  however,  when  his  party 


412  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  m. 

was  apparently  hopelessly  shattered,  he  employed  all  his  talents 
in  the  task  of  effecting  a  union  between  the  Tories  and  a  large 
section  of  the  Whigs.  In  his  '  Dissertation  on  Parties '  and  in 
his  private  letters,  he  maintained  strongly  that  the  old  demar- 
cation of  parties  had  lost  all  meaning;  that  the  question  of 
dynasty  was  virtually  settled;  that  the  Whig  enthusiasm  for 
the  House  of  Hanover  was  chiefly  a  party  pretext  for  monopo- 
lisino-  all  the  offices  of  the  State  and  excluding  the  Tories  as 
enemies  to  the  establishment ;  and  that  this  monopoly  and  this 
exclusion  had  necessarily  led  to  an  aggrandisement  of  corrupt 
influence  on  the  side  of  those  in  power,  which  was  fatal  to  the 
purity  and  might  easily  prove  incompatible  with  the  existence 
of  the  constitution.'  Corruption,  he  was  accustomed  to  main- 
tain, is  much  more  dangerous  to  English  liberty  than  preroga- 
tive, because  it  is  slow  and  insensible  in  its  operation,  because 
it  arouses  no  feeling  of  opposition  in  the  country  like  that 
which  follows  an  unconstitutional  act,  and  because  its  influence 
is  especially  felt  in  the  very  House  which  is  the  appointed 
guardian  of  the  interests  of  the  people.  A  warm  and  affec- 
tionate friendship  with  Windham  gave  Bolingbroke  for  a  con- 
siderable time  an  ascendancy  over  those  Tories  who  had  aban- 
doned Jacobitism,  while  his  position  as  coeditor  with  Pulteney  of 
the  '  Craftsman,'  and  his  confidential  relations  with  many  of  the 
discontented  Whigs  gave  him  influence  with  the  other  section 
of  the  Opposition.  Bolingbroke,  however,  was  unpopular  in  the 
country;  he  was  wearied  of  the  secondary  place  he  was  com- 
pelled to  occupy  in  party  warfare,  and  owing  to  this  and  perhaps 
to  other  causes  which  we  are  not  able  to  unravel,  he  retired  to 
France  in  1735,  and  did  not  again  visit  England  till  after  the 
downfall  of  Walpole.  Before  his  departure,  however,  he  had  ob- 
tained a  great  ascendency  over  the  mind  of  Frederick,  Prince  of 
Wales,  who  soon  became  the  leading  opponent  of  the  Government. 
It  is  natural  in  a  government  like  that  of  England,  that  a  party 
in  opposition  should  turn  their  hopes  to  the    successor  of  the 

'  See   among   other   letters  a  very  remarkable   one   to    Lord   Polwarth, 
Marchmont  Papers,  ii.  177-191. 


CH.  III.  THE   PRINCE   OF  WALES.  413 

throne,  and  it  is  equally  natural  that  an  ambitious  Prince  should 
lean  towards  a  course  of  policy  which  alone  during  his  father's 
lifetime  enables  him  to  take  an  independent  and  a  foremost 
place.     Many  private  causes  conspired  to  inflame  the  jealousy. 
The  Prince  desired  to  marry  a  Prussian  Princess,  and  the  King 
refused  his  request.     After  the  marriage  of  the  Prince  with  the 
Princess  of  Saxe  Gotha,  the  King  only  granted  him  an  allowance 
of  50,000^.  a  year,  though  the  King  himself  when  Prince  of  Wales 
had  received  an  allowance  of  1 00,000/.     Besides  this,  the  Prince's 
affable  manners  rendered  him  more  popular  in  the  country  than 
the  King,  and  his  tastes  inclined  him  to  the  brilliant  literary 
and  social  circle  which  was  in  opposition  to  the  ministry.     From 
1734  there  was  an  open  breach,  and  in  1737  the  Prince  took  the 
extraordinary  step  of  inducing  the  Opposition  to  bring  forward 
a  motion  in  Parliament  urging  the  King  to  allow  his  son  out  of 
the  Civil  List  100,000/.  a  year.     The  Com-t  was  naturally  furious, 
and  Walpole  succeeded  with  some  difficulty  in  defeating  the 
motion.     Lord  Hervey  has  left  us  a  curious  picture  of  the  feelings 
of  the  royal  family  at  this  time — the  Queen  a  hundred  times 
a  day  saying  she  wished  her  son  would  fall  dead  with  apoplexy, 
cursing  the  hour  of  his  birth,  and  describing  him  as  '  a  nauseous 
beast,'  '  the  greatest  liar  that  ever  spoke,'  while  his  sister  declared 
that  she  grudged  him  every  hour  he  continued  to  breathe,  and 
the  King  regarded  him  with  a  steady  though  somewhat  calmer 
hatred.     The  Prince,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  have  lost  no 
opportunity  of  irritating  his  father  and  his  mother  ;  and  when 
his  wife  was  in  labour  he  hurried  her,  in  the  midst  of  her  pains 
and  at  the  imminent  danger  of  her  life,  from  Hampton  Court  to 
St.  James's,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  insulting  the  King,  who  had 
given  orders  that  the  lying-in  should  take  place  at  the  former 
palace.     With  the  same  motive  he  made  his  Court  the  special 
centre  of  opposition  to  the   Government,  and  he  exerted  all  his 
influence  for  the  ruin  of  Walpole.' 

While  all  these  elements  of  strength  were  combining  against 

'  nervey's  Memoirs.    Walpole's  Reminiscences. 


414  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  iii. 

the  minister,  the  death  of  the  Queen »  deprived  him  of  his  firmest 
friend.  She  died  solemnly  commending  her  husband  to  his  care, 
and  her  loss  was  never  replaced.  He  now  stood  alone,  confront- 
ing all  the  ablest  debaters  in  Parliament,  whom  his  jealousy 
had  driven  into  opposition,  while  intrigues  and  dissensions  were 
undermining  his  position  at  the  Court  and  in  the  Cabinet,  and 
while  a  fierce  storm  of  popular  indignation  was  raging  without. 
He  had  somewhat  ostentatiously  displayed  his  contempt  for 
literature,  and  most  of  the  ablest  political  writers  were  arrayed 
ao-ainst  him.  He  had  ridiculed  the  cry  of  parliamentary  purity 
and  the  aspirations  of  young  politicians,  and  all  the  hope  and 
promise  of  England  was  with  his  opponents.  He  had  laboured 
through  good  report  and  through  evil  report  to  maintain  the 
peace  of  Europe,  and  the  Opposition  leaders  succeeded  in  arous- 
ing in  the  country  a  martial  frenzy  which  it  was  impossible  to 
resist. 

The  pretext  was  the  severities  of  the  Spaniards  to  English 
sailors.  Spain,  in  attempting  to  monopolise  the  commerce  of 
the  most  important  part  of  the  New  World,  and  in  forbidding 
all  other  Em-opean  countries  from  holding  intercourse  with  it, 
had  advanced  a  claim  which  sooner  or  later  must  inevitably  have 
led  to  war.  Her  right,  however,  to  regulate  the  traffic  with  her 
trans-Atlantic  dominions  had  been  fully  recognised  by  England ; 
the  principle  of  trade  monopoly  was  strenuously  maintained 
by  England  in  her  own  dominions,  and  by  an  article  in  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht,  in  addition  to  the  trade  in  negroes,  English 
commerce  with  Spanish  America  had  been  expressly  restricted 
to  a  single  ship  of  the  burden  of  600  tons.  This  treaty  was 
soon  systematically  violated.  An  immense  illicit  trade  sprang 
up,  which  was  for  a  time  unmolested,  but  was  afterwards  met  by 
a  rigid  exercise  of  the  right  of  search  on  the  high  seas,  and  by 
the  constant  seizure  of  English  ships,  and  it  was  accompanied  on 
both  sides  by  many  acts  of  violence,  insolence,  and  barbarity. 
A  dispute  had  at  the  same  time  arisen  between  the  two  nations 
about  the  right  of  the  English  traders  to  cut  logwood  in  the 

'  Nov.  20,  1737. 


ca.  ui.  DISPUTES  WITH  SPAIN.  415 

Bay  of  Campeacliy,  and  to  gather  salt  on  the  Island  of  Tortuga, 
and  there  were  chronic  difficulties  about  the  frontiers  of  Georgia 
and  Carolina  on  the  one  side,  and  of  Florida  on  the  other.  For 
many  years  tlie  ill-feeling  smouldered  on,  and  it  gradually 
assumed  very  formidable  proportions.  The  maintenance  of  the 
balance  of  power  had  been  the  chief  cause  of  the  wars  of  the 
century,  and  it  was  observed  with  truth  that  there  was  a  balance 
by  sea  as  well  as  by  land.  The  growing  preponderance  of  the 
English  navy  and  of  English  commerce  had  long  been  seen  with 
a  jealous  eye  both  in  Spain  and  in  France,  and  strong  mutual 
interests  drew  the  two  countries  together.  The  recovery  of 
Gibraltar  had  since  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  been  a  great  object  of 
Spanish  policy,  and  Spain  had  lost,  with  her  dominions  in  the 
Netherlands,  her  chief  reason  for  desiring  an  English  alliance 
and  her  chief  cause  of  quarrel  with  France.  In  the  counsels 
of  the  latter  country  a  strong  military  party  had  appeared  who 
protested  against  the  pacific  policy  of  Flemy,  who  maintained 
that  French  continental  interests  had  been  unduly  sacrificed  to 
England,  and  who  desired  to  revive,  in  part  at  least,  the  policy 
of  Lewis  XIV.  and  to  seek  new  combinations  of  power.  This 
party  was  strengthened  by  the  English  treaty  with  the  Emperor 
in  1731,  which  was  regarded  with  some  reason  as  the  abandon- 
ment of  a  French  for  an  Austrian  alliance,  and  also  by  the  great 
danger  of  an  English  declaration  of  war  during  the  struggle  of 
1733.  At  the  close  of  that  year  a  secret  treaty,  called  the 
Family  Compact,  was  signed  by  the  Kings  of  France  and  Spain, 
with  the  object  of  guarding  against  the  naval  supremacy  of 
England.  By  this  treaty  the  French  agreed,  if  necessary,  to 
assist  Spain  in  her  efforts  to  extirpate  the  abuses  which  crept 
into  her  trade  with  England,  and  also  to  endeavour  to  procure 
'for  Spain  the  cession  of  Gibraltar ;  while  Spain  agreed,  on  a 
fitting  occasion,  to  revoke  the  trade  privileges  of  England  and 
to  admit  France  to  a  large  share  of  her  trans-Atlantic  com- 
merce. 

This  treaty  was  a  profound  secret,  and  was  unknown  both  to 
Walpole  and  the  Opposition,  but  there  were  several  signs  of  a 


416  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  hi. 

growing  coldness  between  England  and  France.  Chauvelin,  who 
was  Secretary  of  State  for  foreign  affairs  from  1727  to  1737, 
gradually  acquired  almost  a  complete  empire  over  the  mind  of 
Fleury,  and  his  influence  was  usually  very  hostile  to  the  English 
alliance.  In  1735  the  English  minister  carried  on  a  very 
secret  neo-otiation  with  him,  and  endeavoured  by  the  offer  of  a 
large  bribe  to  win  him  to  his  interest ;  but  the  attempt  doe  s 
not  appear  to  have  been  successful,  and  the  disgrace  and  exile 
of  Chauvelin,  in  the  beginning  of  1737,  was  regarded  as  a  great 
triumph  of  English  policy.'  On  sea  France  displayed  a  neA^ 
activity,  while  Spain,  secure  in  her  secret  alliance,  grew  more 
severe  in  enforcing  the  right  of  search  against  British  sailors. 
The  latter,  who  despised  and  hated  the  Spaniards  as  foreigners, 
as  Papists,  and  as  ancient  enemies,  appear  to  have  continually 
acted  with  great  insolence.  The  Spaniards  in  their  turn 
retaliated  by  many  acts  of  violence,  which  were  studiously  col- 
lected, aggravated,  and  circulated  in  England.  One  story 
especially  produced  a  deep  impression.  An  English  captain 
named  Jenkins  was  brought  before  Parliament  and  alleged  that 
when  sailing  for  Jamaica,  so  far  back  as  1731,  he  had  been 
seized  by  Spanish  sailors,  tortured  and  deprived  of  his  ears  ;  and 
when  he  was  asked  what  he  thought  when  he  found  himself  in 
the  hands  of  such  barbarians,  he  answered,  in  words  which  had 
doubtless  been  suggested  to  him,  and  which  were  soon  repeated 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  England,  that  'he  had 
recommended  his  soul  to  God  and  his  cause  to  his  country.' 
The  truth  of  the  story  is  extremely  doubtful,  but  the  end  that 
was  aimed  at  was  attained.^  The  indignation  of  the  people, 
fanned  as  it  was  by  the  press  and  by  the  untiring  efforts  of  all 
sections  of  the  Opposition,  became  uncontrollable.     Every  device 

'  See  the   secret   correspondence  ear  or  part   of   his   ear   on  another 

of  the  English  Government,  in  Coxe's  occasion,  and  pretended  it  had  been 

Waljjole,  iii.  308-309,  316,  317,  451-  cut  off  by  a  guarda  costa.'     See,  for 

457.  other  details  on  this  matter,  Coxe's 

^  According  to   Horace   "Walpole,  Walpole,  i.  579-580.     Burke  called  it 

when  Jenkins  died  it  was  found  that  'the  fable  of  Jenkins'  ears.'—  Letters 

his  ear  had  never  been  cut  off  at  all.  on  n  Beai^ide  Peace. 
According  to  Tindal,  *  Jenkins  lost  his 


CH.  111.  DISPUTES  WITH  SPAIX  417 

was  employed  to  sustain  it.  English  sailors  returned  from  cap- 
tivity in  Spain  were  planted  at  the  Exchange,  exhibiting  to  the 
crowds  who  passed  by,  specimens  of  the  loathsome  food  they  were 
obliged  to  eat  in  the  dungeons  of  Spain.  Literature  caught  up 
the  excitement,  and  it  was  reflected  in  the  poetry  of  Pope,  of 
G-lover,  and  of  Johnson.  Walpole  tried  bravely  and  ably  to 
moderate  it,  but  his  conduct  was  branded  as  the  grossest  pusil- 
lanimity. The  King  fully  shared  the  popular  sentiment.  Peti- 
tions poured  into  Parliament  from  every  part  of  the  kingdom 
demanding  redress ;  while  Spain,  relying  on  the  letter  of  the 
treaty  and  on  the  support  of  France,  met  every  overture  with 
suspicion  or  arrogance.  Strong  resolutions  were  carried  through 
both  the  Commons  and  Lords.  Letters  of  marque  and  re- 
prisal were  offered  to  the  merchants.  Admiral  Haddock  was 
despatched  with  a  fleet  of  ten  ships  to  the  Mediterranean, 
and  troops  were  sent  to  the  infant  colony  of  Greorgia  to  protect 
it  from  an  apprehended  invasion. 

These  events  took  place  in  1738.  It  is  a  remarkable  proof 
of  the  tact  and  influence  of  Walpole  that,  notwithstanding  the 
fierce  and  warlike  spirit  in  the  country,  in  the  Parliament  and  in 
the  palace,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  in  his  own  Cabinet 
both  Newcastle  and  Hardwicke  were  advocates  of  war,  the  cata- 
strophe did  not  take  place  till  the  November  of  the  following  year. 
It  is  clear  that  in  the  essential  points  of  difference  England  was 
in  the  wrong.  A  plain  treaty  had  been 'grossly  and  continually 
violated  by  English  sailors.  The  right  of  search  by  which  Spain 
attempted  to  enforce  it,  though  often  harshly  and  improperly 
exercised,  was  perfectly  legal,  and  before  the  war  was  ended  some 
of  the  noisiest  of  those  who  now  denounced  it  were  compelled  to 
acknowledge  the  fact.  Walpole  himself  had  no  doubt  on  the 
-subject,  but  he  tried  in  vain  to  convince  the  coimtry.  The 
House  of  Lords  passed  a  resolution  strongly  condemning  the 
right  of  search,  and  the  people,  prompted  by  the  leaders  of  the 
Opposition  and  now  fully  excited,  insisted  upon  its  unqualified 
relinquishment.  All  that  could  be  done  was  to  negotiate  about 
the  many  instances  of  gross  and  unwarrantable  violence  of  which 
TOL.  I.  28 


418  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

Spanish  captains  had  been  guilty.  The  country  was  full  of 
accounts  of  English  sailors  who  had  been  seized  by  the  Spaniards, 
plundered  of  all  they  possessed,  laden  with  chains  in  a  tropical 
climate,  imprisoned  for  long  periods  in  unhealthy  dungeons, 
tortured  or  consigned  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Inquisition. 
In  these  accounts  there  was  much  exaggeration  and  not  a  little 
deliberate  falsehood,  but  there  was  also  a  real  basis  of  fact. 
After  great  difficulties,  and  by  a  combination  of  intimidation  and 
address,  Spain  was  induced  to  sign  a  convention  regulating  the 
outstanding  accounts  between  the  two  nations  and  awarding  to 
England  as  compensation  a  balance  which  was  ultimately  settled 
at  95,000^.  No  mention  was  made  in  this  convention  of  the 
right  of  search,  or  of  the  punishment  of  the  ofiending  captains, 
and  Spain  was  only  induced  to  sign  it,  by  England  consenting 
to  acknowledge  a  doubtful  claim  of  compensation  for  Spanish 
ships  that  had  been  captmed  by  Byng  in  1718.  It  was  soon, 
however,  plain  that  this  convention  could  not  finally  settle  the 
differences  between  the  two  countries.  Walpole  succeeded,  though 
with  great  difficulty,  in  carrying  it  through  both  Houses,  and  the 
Opposition,  exasperated  by  his  success,  for  a  time  seceded.  In 
the  country,  however,  the  outcry  was  fierce  and  loud,  and  the 
Prince  of  Wales  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  malcontents. 
The  divisions  of  the  Cabinet  became  more  and  more  serious. 
The  attitude  of  France  towards  England  grew  steadily  hostile, 
and  the  language  of  Spain  proportionately  haughty.  She 
threatened  immediate  reprisals  upon  the  South  Sea  Company  on 
account  of  an  old  debt  which  was  alleged  to  be  unpaid.  She 
remonstrated,  with  an  arrogance  an  English  minister  could 
hardly  brook,  against  the  presence  of  a  British  fleet  in  the  Medi- 
terranean. She  reasserted  in  the  strongest  language  that  right 
of  search  which  the  English  nation  was  resolved  at  all  hazards 
to  resist. 

The  Opposition  had  now  succeeded  in  their  design.  War 
had  become  inevitable  ;  and  Walpole,  instead  of  retiring,  as  he 
should  have  done,  declared  it  himself.  '  They  axe  ringing  their 
bells  now,'  he  exclaimed,  as  the  joy  bells  pealed  at  the  an- 


CH.  m.  INCREASING   DIFFICULTIES.  419 

noimcement,  '  they  will  be  wringing  their  hands  soon.'     It  was 
in  vain,  however,  that  he  had  yielded  to  the  clamour,  for  the 
long  agony   of  liis  ministry  had   already  begun.      Supporter 
after  supporter  dropped  away.     The  Duke  of  Argyle,  the  most 
powerful  and  eloquent  of  the  Scottish  chiefs,  had  gone   into 
open  opposition ' ;  and  his  influence,  combined  with  the  irrita- 
tion due  to  the  repressive  measures  that  followed  the  Porteous 
riots,  produced  at  the  next  election,  for  the  first  time,  a  Scotch 
majority  hostile  to  the  minister.     The  Duke  of  Newcastle  was 
moody,  discontented,    and    uncertain.      The   authority  of  the 
minister  in  his  Cabinet,  and  his  majority  in  Parliament,  steadily 
declined.     The  military  organisation  having  fallen  into  decay 
during  the  long  peace,  the  war  was  feebly  and  unsuccessfully 
conducted,  and  the  commanders  by  land  and  sea  were  jealous 
and  disunited.     Anson  plundered  and  burnt  Paita,  and  cap- 
tured a  few  Spanish  prizes.     Admiral  Vernon  took  Porto  Bello, 
but  the  capture  was  speedily  relinquished ;  and  Vernon,  being 
a  personal  enemy  of  Walpole,  his  triumph  rather  weakened 
than  strengthened  the  Government.      With  these  exceptions, 
the  first  period  of  the  war  presented  little  more  than  a  monotony 
of  disaster.      The   repulse    of  an   expedition  against    Cartha- 
gena,   the  abandonment   of  an    expedition  against    Cuba,  the 
destruction  of  many  thousands  of  English  soldiers  and  sailors 
by  tropical  fever,  the  inactivity    of    the  British  fleet    in  the 
JMediterranean,   the   rapid   decline   of  British    commerce,   ac- 
companied by  severe  distress  at  home- all  contributed  to  the 
discontent.     In  the  midst  of  these  calamities,  a  new  series  of 
events  began,  which  soon  plunged  the  greater  part  of  Europe 
into  war.     In    October  1740   the  Emperor    Charles  VI.  died, 
after  a  very  short  illness,  at  the  early  age  of  fifty-five,  leaving 
no  son.     For  many  years  the  great  objects  of  his  policy  had 
been  to  bequeath  his  whole  Austrian  dominions  to  his  daughter 
Maria  Theresa,  and    to  obtain   for  her  husband  the  Duke  of 

'  In   a  letter    to    Swift,    1734-5,  how  formidable  a  body  they  were  in 

Pulteney  had  noticed  the  steadiness  the  House  of  Lords. — Swift's  Cwre- 

with   which  the  bishops  and  Scotch  sjmndence,  iii.  120. 
peers   supported   the    ministry,  and 


420  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EiaHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

Tuscany,  and  former  ruler  of  Lorraine,  the  Imperial  crown. 
The  latter  object  could,  of  course,  only  be  attained  when  the 
vacancy  occurred,  and  by  the  ordinary  process  of  election  ;  but  in 
order  to  secure  the  former,  Charles  VI.  had  promulgated  the  law 
called  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  regulating  the  succession,  and 
had  obtained  a  solemn  assent  to  that  law  from  the  Germanic 
body,  and  from  the  great  hereditary  States  of  Europe.  With  so 
distinct  and  so  recent  a  recognition  of  her  title  by  all  the  great 
Powers  of  Europe,  the  young  Archduchess,  it  was  hoped,  would 
have  no  difficulty  in  assuming  the  throne  as  Queen  of  Hungary 
and  of  the  other  hereditary  dominions  of  her  father,  and  she  did 
so  with  the  warm  assent  of  her  subjects.  She  was,  however,  a 
young  and  inexperienced  woman,  wholly  unversed  in  public 
business,  and  at  this  time  far  advanced  in  pregnancy.  Her 
dominions  were  threatened  by  the  Turks  from  without,  and 
corroded  by  serious  dissensions  within.  Her  army,  exclusive 
of  the  troops  in  Italy  and  the  Netherlands,  amounted  to  only 
30,000  men,  and  her  whole  treasure  consisted  of  100,000  florins, 
which  were  claimed  by  the  Empress  dowager.'  All  these  cir- 
cumstances might  have  moved  generous  natures  in  her  favour, 
but  they  served  only  to  stimulate  the  rapacity  of  her  neigh- 
bours. The  Elector  of  Bavaria  had  never  signed  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction,  and  he  laid  claim  to  the  Austrian  throne  on  grounds 
which  were  demonstrably  worthless.  France  had  not  only  as- 
sented to,  but  even  guaranteed,  the  Pragmatic  Sanction ;  and 
Cardinal  Fleury,  who  was  at  the  head  of  affairs,  would  probably 
have  kept  his  faith,  but  he  was  now  a  very  old  and  vacillating 
man,  and  his  hand  was  forced  by  Marshal  Belleisle,  who,  at 
the  head  of  a  powerful  body  of  French  nobles^  saw  in  the 
weakness  of  the  young  queen  an  opportunity  of  aggrandising 
France,  and  dismembering  an  ancient  rival.  Prussia  also  was 
a  party  to  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  ;  but  Frederick  II.,  who  had 
just  ascended  the  throne,  was  burdened  with  no  scruples ;  he 
found  himself  at  the  head  of  an  admirable  army  of  76,000  men, 

'  See  Coxe's  House  of  Austria. 


CH.  III.  FREDERICK  II.  42 1 

and  was  impatient  to  employ  it  in  the  plunder  of  bis  enfeebled 
neigbbour. 

Tbe  Elector  of  Bavaria  refused  to  acknowledge  tbe  title  of 
the  Empress,  but  tbe  first  blow  was  struck  by  Frederick.  Tbat 
he  was  moved  to  this  course  simply  by  the  consciousness  of  his 
own  great  military  strength,  and  of  the  weakness  and  disorga- 
nisation of  the  Empire ;  that  he  sought  his  own  aggrandise- 
ment with  circumstances  of  peculiar  treachery,  and  with  a  clear 
knowledge  that  he  was  about  to  apply  the  spark  to  a  powder 
magazine,  and  to  involve  the  greater  part  of  Europe  in  the 
horrors  of  war,  are  facts  which  remain  intact  after  all  the 
elaborate  apologies  that  have  been  written  in  his  favour.  He 
was  a  man  of  singularly  clear,  vivid,  and  rapid  judgment,  ad- 
mirably courageous  in  seizing  perilous  opportunities,  and  in 
encountering  adversity ;  admirably  energetic  and  indefatigable 
in  raising  to  the  highest  point  of  efficiency  all  the  details  both 
of  civil  and  military  administration.  Perfectly  free  from  every 
tinge  of  religious  bigotry,  he  was  one  of  the  most  tolerant 
rulers  of  his  age,  and  he  was  one  of  the  first  who,  by  abolishing 
torture  in  his  dominions,  introduced  the  principles  of  Beccaria 
into  practical  legislation.  Though  intensely  avaricious  of  real 
power,  and  disposed  to  exercise  a  petty,  meddling,  and  spiteful 
despotism  in  the  smallest  spheres,^  he  had  nothing  of  the  royal 
love  for  the  pomp  and  trappings  of  majesty,  nothing  of  the 
blind  reverence  for  old  forms  and  for  old  traditions,  nothing  of 
the  childish  cowardice  which  so  often  makes  those  who  are  born 
to  the  purple  unable  to  hear  unwelcome  truths  or  to  face  un- 
welcome facts.  Like  Richelieu,  the  element  of  weakness  in  his 
character  took  the  form  of  literary  vanity,  and  of  a  feeble  vein 
of  literary  sentimentality,  but  it  never  afifected  his  active  career. 
Unlike  Napoleon,  to  whom  in  many  respects  he  bore  a  striking 
resemblance,  his  faculties  were  always  completely  under  his 
control ;  he  was  never  intoxicated,  either  by  the  magnitude  6i 

'  See  some  very  curious  illustra-       Walpole.'s   Memoirs   of  George  II.  i. 
tions  of  this   in   the   letters  of    8ir       pp.  452-4G1. 
Hanbury     Williams     from     Berlin. 


422  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  in. 

his  schemes  or  by  the  violence  of  his  passions,  and  his  shrewd, 
calculating  intellect  remained  unclouded  through  all  the  vicis- 
situdes of  fortune.  He  was  at  the  same  time  hard  and  selfish 
to  the  core,  and  without  a  spark  of  generosity  or  of  honour. 
His  one  object  was  the  aggrandisement  of  the  territory  over 
which  he  ruled.  Of  patriotism,  in  the  higher  and  more  disin- 
terested sense  of  the  word,  he  had  little  or  nothing.  All  his 
natural  leanings  of  mind  and  disposition  were  French,  and  few 
men  appear  to  have  had  less  appreciation  of  the  nobler  aspects 
of  the  Grerman  character,  or  of  the  dawning  splendour  of  the 
German  intellect.  His  own  words,  describing  the  motives  of 
his  first  war,  have  been  often  cited  :  '  Ambition,  interest,  the 
desire  of  making  men  talk  about  me,  carried  the  day,  and  I 
decided  for  war.' 

It  was  not  difficult,  in  the  confused  and  intricate  field  of 
G-erman  politics,  to  find  pretexts  for  aggression,  and  Prussia 
had  one  real  reason  to  complain  of  the  conduct  of  the  Empire. 
One  of  her  most  ardent  desires  was  to  obtain  for  herself  the  suc- 
cession to  the  little  Duchies  of  Juliers  and  Berg.  They  had 
passed  in  1675  under  the  sceptre  of  the  Neuberg  branch  of  the 
Palatine  Electoral  family,  but  the  reigning  Elector  Palatine 
was  the  last  sovereign  of  that  branch,  and  the  succession  was 
claimed  by  the  Prussian  sovereigns,  and  also  by  the  Sulzbach 
branch  of  the  Palatine  family.  After  much  secret  negotiation, 
a  compromise  was  arrived  at.  Frederick  William,  who  was  then 
King  of  Prussia,  restricted  his  demand  to  the  possession  of  Berg ; 
and  he  made  it  a  condition  of  the  recognition  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction  that  the  Emperor  should  assist  him  in  obtaining  the 
succession.  The  treaty  was  made,  but  it  was  speedily  broken. 
The  Elector  Palatine  ardently  desired  the  succession  for  the 
Sulzbach  branch  of  his  family ;  and  all  Catholic  Germany  looked 
upon  Dusseldorf  as  an  essential  frontier  fortress  against  Pro- 
testant aggression.  It  was  probable  that  the  Prussian  claims 
could  only  be  enforced  by  arms,  and  that  France  would  resent  any 
considerable  aggrandisement  of  Prussia  on  the  Kbine.  These 
and  other  considerations  of  German  politics  threw  the  Emperor 


en.  Ill  POLICY   OF  FREDERICK.  423 

Charles  VI.  decidedly  on  the  side  of  the  Palatine  Succession, 
and  in  conjunction  with  the  other  great  European  Powers,  he 
even  urged  that  the  Duchy  should  ])e  provisionally  garrisoned 
by  troops  belonging  to  the  Sulzbach  branch  until  a  Eiu'opean 
arbitration  had  decided  the  disputed  succession.  "Whatever 
might  be  the  rights  of  the  question  of  succession,  Frederick 
William  considered  with  reason  that  the  Emperor  had  broken 
faith  with  him,  and  he  speedily  opened  secret  negotiations 
with  France.  French  statesmen  seldom  lost  an  opportunity  of 
obtaining  an  ally  or  an  influence  in  Germany,  and  a  secret  alli- 
ance was  ultimately  concluded  by  which  they  undertook  to  sup- 
port the  claims  of  Prussia  to  a  portion  of  the  Duchy,  excluding, 
however,  Dusseldorf,  the  capital.^ 

This  was  a  real  ground  of  difference.  The  claims  of  Prussia 
to  the  greater  part  of  the  Austrian  province  of  Silesia  were  of  a 
much  more  flimsy  description.  The  Duchy  of  Jiigerndorf  had 
once  been  in  the  possession  of  a  collateral  branch  of  the  House  of 
Brandenburg,  which  had  been  deprived  of  it,  it  was  alleged  un- 
justly, in  1623,  and  Frederick  claimed  the  territory  as  lineal 
descendant,  though  it  had  remained  undisturbed  in  Austrian 
hands  for  more  than  a  century.  It  is  plain  that  by  the  applica- 
tion of  such  a  principle  the  security  of  Europe  might  be  at 
any  moment  destroyed,  for  there  is  no  State  which  has  not 
at  some  distant  period  gained  or  lost  territory  by  acts  of  at 
least  disputable  justice.  The  Duchies  of  Liegnitz,  Brieg,  and 
Wohlan  were  claimed  on  somewhat  more  complicated  grounds. 
About  1635  a  family  compact  had  been  made  between  Frederick, 
who  then  governed  them  as  Duke,  and  the  Elector  Joachim  II., 
Duke  of  Brandenburg,  providing  that  in  the  event  of  the  failure 
of  the  male  issue  of  either  sovereign,  his  territory  was  to  pass 
to  the  descendants  of  the  other.  Ferdinand  I.,  King  of 
Bohemia,  who  was  the  feudal  lord,  refused  to  recognise  this 
compact,  and  its  validity  was  in  consequence  very  doubtful ; 
and  when  in  1675  the  ducal  house  of  Liegnitz  became  extinct, 
Austria  took  possession  of  the  territory,  and  the  Elector  of 
"  See  the  details  of  this  negotiation  in  Ranke's  Hist,  of  Prussia. 


424  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

Brandenburg  was  soon  after  induced  to  renounce  for  himself  and 
his  descendants  all  claim  to  its  possession.  Frederick  maintained 
this  renunciation  to  be  invalid,  and  he  claimed  by  virtue  of  the 
original  compact.' 

These,  however,  were  mere  pretexts  for  a  course  of  conduct 
which  was  decided  on  very  different  grounds.  With  consum- 
mate address,  and  with  consummate  baseness,  Frederick  lulled 
the  suspicions  of  the  young  Queen  to  rest  by  professions  of  the 
warmest  friendship  till  his  army  was  on  the  eve  of  marching. 
He  made  no  alliance,  but  just  before  starting  for  the  war. he 
said  significantly  to  the  French  ambassador,  '  I  am  going,  I 
believe,  to  play  your  game,  and  if  I  should  throw  doublets,  we 
will  share  the  stake.'  ^  Without  making  any  demands,  or  stating 
any  conditions,  without  any  previous  notice,  or  any  declaration 
of  war,  he  suddenly  poured  30,000  soldiers  into  Silesia,  which 
was  plunged  in  the  security  of  profound  peace,  and  left  almost 
wholly  destitute  of  troops.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  he  apprised 
Maria  Theresa  of  his  designs,  and  offered,  if  she  would  cede  to 
him  the  whole  Lower  Puchy  which  he  had  invaded,  to  defend 
her  title  to  the  Austrian  throne.^  The  offer  was  rejected  as  an 
insult,  and  the  whole  province  was  overrun  by  Prussian  soldiers. 
Breslau  and  several  minor  towns  were  captured,  and  an  army 
which  marched  from  Moravia,  under  Marshal  Neipperg,  to  the 
rescue  of  Silesia  was  defeated  at  the  great  battle  of  Molwitz. 
The  signal  was  given,  and  from  every  side  the  wolves  rushed 
upon  their  prey.  France  had  at  first  duped  the  Queen  of  Hun- 
gary by  false  and  treacherous  assurances,  but  she  now  flung  off 
the  mask,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  and 
with  that  Power  entered  into  the  war.  The  Kings  of  Spain  and 
of  Sardinia  and  the  Elector  of  Saxony  laid  claims  to  portions  of 
the  Austrian  dominions,  and  proposed  openly  or  secretly  to  dis- 

'  The  original  statements  of  the  '■'  Voltaire,    Siecle    de  Louis  XV. 

causes  of  the  war  both  on  the  Prussian  ch.  6- 

and  Austrian  side  are  given  at  length  *  Gotter,  who  was  sent    on  this 

in    the     Higtoire     de     la-     Dtrfuiere  message,  arrived  at  Vienna  two  days 

Guerre  de  Boheme,  par  D.  M.  V.  L.  N.  after  the  Prussians  had  entered  Sile- 

(Amsterdam,  1756).  sia. — Frederick,  Mem.  de  Man  Temps, 


CH.  in.  ENGLA>'D   DRAWN  INTO   THE  WAR.  425 

member  tbem.  In  June  1741  a  treaty  was  signed  between 
France  and  Prussia,  and  by  the  end  of  October  the  fortunes  of 
Austria  appeared  desperate.  Silesia  was  irrecoverably  gone. 
Moravia  was  invaded  by  the  Prussians.  Bohemia  was  overrun 
by  a  united  army  of  French  and  Bavarians ;  Vienna  was  seriously 
menaced  ;  Linz  and  Passau  were  taken  ;  the  capture  of  Prague 
soon  followed,  and,  before  the  close  of  the  year,  the  Elector  of 
Bavaria  was  crowned  King  of  Bohemia. 

The  Queen  of  Hungary,  however,  presented  an  inflexible 
front  to  her  enemies.  Driven  from  Vienna  she  threw  herself  on 
the  loyalty  of  her  Hungarian  subjects,  who  received  her  with  an 
enthusiasm  that  dispelled  every  hesitation  from  her  mind,  and 
she  urgently  called  on  those  Powers  which  had  accepted  the 
Prao-matic  Sanction,  guaranteeing  her  succession  to  the  whole 
Austrian  dominions,  to  assist  her  in  her  struggle.  Of  these 
Powers,  France,  Prussia,  Spain,  and  Poland,  whose  sovereign  was 
the  Elector  of  Saxony,  had  combined  to  plunder  her.  Russia, 
chiefly  by  French  intrigues,  was  embroiled  in  war  with  Sweden. 
The  Dutch  desired  above  all  things  to  avoid  the  conflict.  In 
England  the  feeling  of  the  King,  of  the  people,  and  of  Xew- 
castle  and  Hardwicke,  was  in  favour  of  war ;  but  Walpole 
strained  every  nerve  to  maintain  peace.  In  addition  to  his 
constitutional  and  very  honourable  hatred  of  war  he  had  many 
special  reasons.  He  clearly  foresaw  from  the  first,  what  Maria 
Theresa  refused  till  the  last  moment  to  believe,  that  tlie  French 
were  secretly  meditating  the  dismemberment  of  Austria,  and 
he  was  therefore  anxious  at  all  costs  to  put  an  end  to  the  war  be- 
tween Austria  and  Prussia.  Besides  this,  England  was  already 
at  war  with  Spain,  and  a  French  war  would  probably  lead  to  a 
Jacobite  insiurrection.  Walpole  urgently,  but  vainly,  labomred 
-  to  induce  the  Queen  of  Hungary  to  propitiate  Frederick  by  the 
cession  of  the  whole  or  part  of  Silesia,  to  induce  Frederick, 
through  fear  of  the  ascendency  of  France,  to  secede  from  the 
confederation,  and,  having  failed  in  both  objects,  he  was  dragged 
reluctantly  into  the  war.  In  April  1741  the  King's  speech 
called  upon  Parliament  to  aid  him  in  maintaining  the  Prag- 


426  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

matic  Sanction,  and  a  subsidy  of  30O,000L  to  the  Queen  of 
Hungary  was  voted.  In  the  following  month  the  King,  in 
spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  Walpole,  went  over  to  Hanover  to 
organise  a  mixed  army  of  English  and  German  troops,  but  a 
French  army  passed  the  Meuse,  and  marched  rapidly  upon 
Hanover,  and  the  King,  scared  by  the  threatened  invasion  of 
his  Principality,  concluded,  in  his  capacity  of  Elector,  without 
consulting  or  even  informing  his  English  ministers,  a  treaty 
pledging  Hanover  to  neutrality  for  a  year.  Ever  since  the 
accession  of  the  House  of  Brunswick,  Hanover  had  been  a  per- 
petual source  of  embarrassment  and  danger  to  England,  but  a 
Grerman  war  was  one  of  the  very  few  contingencies  in  which  its 
alliance  was  of  some  real  value.  The  indignation  excited  in 
England  by  the  treaty  of  neutrality  was  in  consequence  very 
violent,  and  nearly  at  the  same  time  the  news  arrived  that 
15,000  Spanish  troops,  under  the  protection  of  a  French 
squadron,  had  sailed  from  Barcelona,  in  spite  of  the  neighbour- 
hood of  a  British  fleet,  to  attack  the  Austrian  dominions  in 
Italy. 

Many  of  these  faults  and  misfortunes  can  in  no  degree  be 
ascribed  to  Walpole.  Many  of  them  were,  in  fact,  the  dii'ect 
consequence  of  the  abandonment  of  his  policy  ;  but  in  the  mood 
in  which  the  nation  then  was,  they  all  contributed  to  his  un- 
popularity. He  was,  in  fact,  emphatically  a  peace  minister,  and 
even  had  it  been  otherwise,  no  minister  can  command  the  re- 
quisite national  enthusiasm  if  he  is  conducting  a  war  of  which 
he  notoriously  disapproves.  There  are  few  pictures  more  painful 
or  humiliating  than  are  presented  by  the  last  few  months  of  his 
power.  He  had  lived  so  long  in  office,  and  he  had  so  few  other 
tastes,  that  he  clung  to  it  with  a  desperate  tenacity.  His  private 
fortune  was  disordered.  He  knew  that  his  fall  would  be  followed 
by  an  impeachment,  and  he  had  none  of  the  magnanimity  of  virtue 
that  has  supported  some  statesmen  under  the  ingratitude  of 
nations,  and  has  enabled  them  to  look  forward  with  confidence  to 
the  verdict  of  posterity.  Once,  it  is  true,  he  placed  his  resignation 
in  the  hands  of  the  King,  who  desired  him  to  continue  in  office. 


cu.  III.  FALL   OF  WALPOLE.  427 

and  he  consented  too  readily  for  bis  fame.    He  encountered  tlie 
opposition  within  Parliament,  and  the  obloquy  without,  with  a 
courage  that  never  flinched,  but  he  felt  that  the  end  was  drawing 
near,  and  his  old  buoyancy  of  spirits  was  gone.     '  He  who  in 
former  years,'  wrote  his  son,  '  was  asleep  as  soon  as  his  head 
touched  the  pillow  . . .  now  never  sleeps  above  an  hour  without 
waking ;  and  he  who  at  dinner  always  forgot  he  was  minister, 
and  was  more  gay  and  thoughtless  than  all  his  company,  now 
sits  without  speaking,  and  with  his  eyes  fixed,  for  an  hour  to- 
gether.' '     He  met  a  motion  for  his  removal,  which  was  brought 
forward  by  Sandys,  with  a  speech  of  consummate  power,  and 
the  secession  of  Shippen  and  his  followers  gave  him  on  this  oc- 
casion the  victory.     He  tried  in  vain  to  detach  the  Prince  of 
Wales  from  the  Opposition  by  inducing  the  King  to  offer  him 
the  increase  of  his  allowance  which  he  had  long  desired.    He  tried 
to  crush  Pitt  by  depriving  him  of  his  commission  in  the  army. 
He  even  tried  at  one  time  to  win  a  few  Jacobite  votes  by  an  insin- 
cere and  futile  overture  to  the  Pretender.^     The  great  frost  at 
the  close  of  1739  added  seriously  to  his  difficulties  by  the  distress 
and  the  discontent  it   produced.     The    harvest   that  followed 
was  miserably  bad.    Bread  rose  almost  to  famine  price.     Bakers' 
shops  were  broken  open,  and  fierce  riots  took  place  in  many 
parts  of  England.     The  people  were  angry,  sullen,  and  wretched, 
and  quite  disposed  to  make  the  minister  responsible  for  their 
sufferings.    At  the  moment  when  his  unpopularity  was  at  its 
height  the  period  for  a  dissolution  of  Parliament  arrived.     The 
feelings  of  the  people  could  not  be  doubted,  but  party  connec- 
tions, borough  influence,  and  a  lavish  expenditure  of  secret- 
service  money  might  still  protract  his  rule,  and  all  three  were 
strained  to  tlie  uttermost.     An  unforeseen  circumstance  appears 
to  have  turned  the  scale.    An  injudicious  and  hasty  interference 
of  some  soldiers  in  a  riot  tliat  took  place  at  the  Westminster 
election.^  though  Walpole  was  certainly  wholly  unconcerned  in 

»  To  Sir  H.  Mann.     Oct.  10,  1741.       1739  through  the  medium  of  Carte,  the 
*  See   the   account   of    this   very      historian)  in  Lord  Stanhope's  Hist,  of 
curious  overture  (which  was  made  in      England,  iii.  pp.  23-2i. 


428  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUHY.  ch.  in. 

it,  was  made  the  basis  of  an  absurd  and  malignant  report  that 
the  ministers  were  attempting  to  coerce  the  voters  by  military 
force  and  the  indignation  thus  aroused  affected  several  elec- 
tions. When  Parliament  met,  in  the  beginning  of  December 
1741,  Walpole  had  only  a  bare  majority,  and  after  eight  weeks 
of  fierce  and  factious  wrangling,  being  defeated  on  January  28 
on  a  question  relating  to  an  election  petition,  he  resigned.^ 

He  had  already  provided,  with  his  usual  caution,  for  his 
fall.  In  the  course  of  his  ministry  he  had  bestowed  upon  his 
sons  permanent  ofl&ces,  chiefly  sinecures,  amounting  in  all  to 
about  15,000^.  a-year,^  and  had  obtained  the  title  of  Baron  for 
his  eldest  son,  and  the  Orders  of  the  Bath  and  of  the  Garter 
for  himself.  He  now  procured  for  himself  the  title  of  Earl  of 
Orford,  and  a  pension  of  4,000L  a-year,  and  for  his  illegitimate 
daughter  the  rank  and  precedence  of  an  Earl's  daughter.  He 
is  said,  many  years  before,  to  have  disarmed  the  animosity  of 
Shippen  by  saving  from  punishment  a  Jacobite  friend  of  that 
statesman ;  and  he  endeavoured  in  vain  to  avert  an  impeach- 
ment by  inducing  the  King  to  offer  Pulteney  the  chief  place  in 
the  Government  on  the  condition  that  he  would  save  his  pre- 
decessor from  prosecution.  The  King,  though  he  had  always 
disliked  the  peace  policy  of  his  minister,  acted  towards  him 
with  a  fidelity  that  has  not  been  suflQciently  appreciated ; 
strained  all  his  influence  for  his  protection,  and  even  burst  into 
tears  when  parting  with  him.  To  the  mass  of  the  nation,  however, 
the  fall  of  Walpole  was  the  signal  of  the  wildest  rejoicing.  It 
was  believed  that  the  reign  of  corruption  had  at  last  ended ; 
that  triennial  parliaments  would  be  restored  ;  that  standing 
armies  would  be  abolished  in  time  of  peace  ;  that  a  new  energy 
would  be  infused  into  the  conduct  of  the  war ;  that  all  pen- 
sioners would  be  excluded  from  Parliament ;  that  the  number 

'  See  tlie  graphic  account  of  this  ^  ggg  the  list  in   Coxe's  Walj^ole, 

last  struggle  in  H.  Walpole's  letters  i.    730-731,    and    Horace    Walpole "s 

to  Sir  H.  Mann.     Glover  asserts   in  Memoir     of     his     own     income     in 

his  Memoirs  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  Waljwle's    Life     and     Letters    (ed. 

assured  him  that  the  last  votes  against  Cunningham)  vol.  i. 
Walpole  cost  the  Opposition  12,000/. 


en.  HI.  GROWTH   OF  THE   DEMOCRATIC   ELEMENT.  429 

of  placemen  would  be  strictly  limited.  Statesmen  oliserved 
with  concern  the  great  force  which  the  democratic  element  in 
the  country  had  almost  silently  acquired  during  the  long  and 
pacific  ministry  of  Walpole.  The  increasing  numbers  and 
wealth  of  the  trading  classes,  the  growth  of  the  great  towns, 
the  steady  progress  of  the  press,  and  the  discredit  which  cor- 
ruption had  brought  upon  the  Parliament,  had  all  contributed 
to  produce  a  spirit  beyond  the  walls  of  the  Legislature  such  as 
had  never  before  been  shown,  except  when  ecclesiastical  interests 
were  concerned.  Political  agitation  assumed  new  dimensions, 
and  doctrines  about  the  duty  of  representatives  subordinating 
their  judgments  to  those  of  their  electors,  which  had  scarcely 
been  heard  in  England  since  the  Commonwealth,  were  freely 
expressed.  A  very  a})le  political  writer,  who  had  been  an  ardent 
opponent  of  Walpole,  but  who  was  much  terrified  at  the  aspect 
the  country  had  assumed  upon  his  fall,  has  left  us  a  lively 
picture  of  what  he  termed  '  the  republican  spirit  that  had  so 
strangely  arisen.'  He  notices  as  a  new  and  curious  fact  the 
*  instructions '  drawn  up  by  some  of  the  electors  of  London,  of 
Westminster,  and  several  other  cities  to  their  representatives, 
prescribing  the  measures  that  were  required,  and  asserting  or 
implying  '  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every  Member  of  Parliament 
to  vote  in  every  instance  as  his  constituents  should  direct  him 
in  the  House  of  Commons,'  contrary  to  '  the  constant  and  al- 
lowed principle  of  our  Constitution  that  no  man,  after  he  is 
chosen,  is  to  consider  himself  as  a  member  for  any  particular 
place,  but  as  a  representative  for  the  whole  nation.'  He  com- 
plains that  'the. views  of  the  popular  interest,  inflamed,  dis- 
tracted, and  misguided  as  it  has  been  of  late,  are  such  as  they 
were  never  imagined  to  have  been  ; '  that  '  a  party  of  malcon- 
tents, assuming  to  themselves,  though  very  falsely,  the  title  of 
the  People,  claim  with  it  a  pretension  which  no  people  could 
have  a  right  to  claim,  of  creating  themselves  into  a,  new  order 
in  the  State,  affecting  a  superiority  to  the  whole  Legislature, 
insolently  taking  upon  them  to  dictate  to  all  the  three  estates, 
in  which  the  absolute  power  of  the  Government,  by  all  the  laws 


430  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  in. 

of  this  country,  has  indisputably  resided  ever  since  it  was  a 
Government,  and  endeavouring  in  effect  to  animate  the  people 
to  resume  into  their  own  hands  that  vague  and  loose  authority 
which  exists  (unless  in  theory)  in  the  people  of  no  country  upon 
earth  and  the  inconvenience  of  which  is  so  obvious  that  it  is 
the  first  step  of  mankind,  when  formed  into  society,  to  divest 
themselves  of  it,  and  to  delegate  it  for  ever  from  themselves.'  ^ 

In  these  movements  of  public  opinion  we  may  clearly  trace 
the  conditions  that  rendered  possible  the  career  of  Pitt.  On 
the  present  occasion,  however,  they  were  doomed  to  a  speedy 
disappointment.  Petitions  poured  into  Westminster,  and  for  a 
time  Pulteney  was  the  object  of  a  popularity  such  as  few  English 
politicians  have  ever  enjoyed.  But  in  a  few  days  the  pro- 
spect was  overclouded.  Statesmen  of  the  most  opposite  parties 
had  concmred  for  the  purpose  of  hurling  Walpole  from  power ; 
but  when  they  succeeded,  their  disunion  was  at  once  apparent, 
and  the  hollowness  of  their  pretensions  to  purity  was  exposed. 
Pulteney  fulfilled  his  rash  pledge  of  not  taking  office,  but,  by  a 
fatal  error  of  judgment,  he  accepted  the  earldom  of  Bath,  as 
well  as  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet,  and  his  influence  was  irrevocably 
destroyed.^  He  lost  all  credit  with  the  nation  for  disinterested- 
ness. He  was  removed  from  the  House  of  Commons,  which  he 
might  have  led,  and  his  attempts  to  exercise  a  controlling  direc- 
tion over  affairs  without  accepting  the  responsibility  of  office 
utterly  failed.  The  King,  it  is  said,  indignant  at  his  conduct, 
at  first  shrank  from  giving  him  the  peerage  which  in  the  course 
of  his  career  he  had  already  three  times  refused,  but  the  old 
minister,  perceiving  clearly  the  error  of  his  rival,  persuaded  his 
master  to  yield.  '  I  have  turned  the  key  of  the  Cabinet  on 
him.'  he  exclaimed,  with  a  significant  gesture,  and  he  soon  after- 

^  Faction  Deteeted  hy  the  Evidence  pole.     Sir    R.   Wilmot,   in    a    letter 

of  Facts.    This  very  remarkable  pam-  to  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  Jan.  12, 

phlet   (which    went    through    many  17-H-2,  said  :  '  Pulteney's  terms  seem 

editions)  has  been  ascribed  to  Lord  to  be  a  peerage,  and  a  place  in  the 

Egmont.  Cabinet  Council,  if  he  can  get  it.' — 

^  His  intentions   appear  to  have  Coxe's  Walpole,  iii.  587. 
been  known  before  the  fall  of  Wal- 


CH.  ui.  UNPOPULAKITY  OF  PULTENEY.  431 

wards  greeted  ]jim  with  mock  gravity  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
'  Here  we  are,  my  Lord,  the  two  most  insignificant  men  in  the 
kingdom.'  Pulteney,  indeed,  was  utterly  overwhelmed  by  the 
reproaches  of  the  Tories,  by  the  poignant  satires  of  Sir  Han- 
bury  Williams,  and  by  the  execration  of  the  people.  Yot  years 
he  had  discharged  the  easy  task  of  criticising  abuses  which  he  was 
not  called  upon  to  remedy.  He  had  made  himself  the  great  ad- 
versary of  all  corrupt  influence,  the  idol  of  all  who  aspired  to 
reform,  but  no  sooner  had  the  hour  for  action  arrived  than  he 
shrank  ignobly  from  the  helm.  Henceforth  his  political  life 
was  a  wretched  tissue  of  disappointed  hopes.  He  tried  in  vain 
to  grasp  the  reins  of  power  on  the  death  of  Lord  Wilmington. 
He  tried  to  assist  Cax'teret  in  forming  an  administration  in 
1 746.  He  declared  himself  in  the  next  reign  a  supporter  of 
the  Tory  Bute,  but  he  never  again  enjoyed  either  popular  or 
royal  favour.  In  a  few  years  he  was  powerless  and  almost  for- 
gotten. He  had  always  loved  money  too  much,  and  under  the 
influence  of  age  and  disappointment  this  failing  is  said  to  have 
deepened  into  an  avarice  not  less  sordid  than  that  which  had 
clouded  the  noble  faculties  of  Marlboroufjh. 

Walpole  also,  or,  to  give  liim  his  new  title,  Orford,  soon  dis- 
appeared from  the  scene,  but  his  influence  endured  to  the  last. 
For  a  time  his  life  seemed  in  imminent  danger.  The  cry  of  the 
people  for  his  blood  was  fierce  and  general,  and  politicians  of 
most  parties  had  pledged  themselves  to  impeach  him.  It  soon, 
however,  appeared  that,  with  the  exception  of  Pitt,  Chester- 
field, and  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  no  man  of  importance  was 
anxious  to  push  matters  to  extremity,  while  many  and  various 
influences  favoured  him.  Those  who  had  come  in  immediate 
contact  with  him  could  hardly  be  wholly  insensible  to  his  many 
great  qualities  and  to  the  eminent  services  he  had  rendered  to 
the  country  and  the  dynasty.  The  King  and  House  of  Lords 
were  warmly  in  his  favour.  The  Prince  of  Wales  was  recon- 
ciled to  him.  Newcastle,  though  he  had  often  quarrelled  with 
him,  was  anxious  for  many  reasons  to  shield  him,  and  negotiated 
with  great  tact  to  prevent  the  complete  triumph  of  his  ene- 


432  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

mies.^  Pulteney  was  alarmed  at  the  sudden  impulse  given  to  the 
Jacobite  party,  and  at  the  loud  cry  for  the  suppression  of  the 
standino"  army,  which  might,  if  it  succeeded,  be  fatal  to  the 
dynasty,  and  it  was  impossible  to  form  an  administration  with- 
out including  a  considerable  section  of  the  former  Government. 
Besides  this,  corrupt  influence  had  pervaded  all  parties.  No 
party  sincerely  wished  to  change  the  system,  and  therefore  all 
parties  shrank  from  exposing  it.  Walpole  was  compelled,  indeed, 
to  relinquish  his  pension,  which  two  years  after  he  resumed, 
and  Pulteney  was  reluctantly  obliged  to  urge  on  his  impeach- 
ment, but,  as  might  have  been  expected,  it  was  without  result. 
Carteret  himself  took  a  leading  part  in  tlie  House  of  Lords  in 
opposing  the  Bill  granting  indemnity  to  those  who  gave  evi- 
dence against  Walpole,  and  the  blunders  of  the  new  ministers, 
if  they  did  not  restore  the  popularity  of  the  fallen  statesman, 
at  least  speedily  diverted  into  new  channels  the  indignation  of 
the  people. 

He  retained  his  influence  with  the  King  to  the  last,  and  he 
used  it  successfully  to  divide  his  adversaries,  to  perpetuate  the 
exclusion  of  the  Tory  party,  and  to  bring  the  Pelhams  into  the 
forefront.  He  died  in  1745,  after  great  suffering,  which  he 
bore  with  great  courage.  '  A  few  days  before  he  died,'  writes 
his  biographer,  '  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  who  had  ineffectually 
remonstrated  with  the  King  against  a  marriage  with  the  Princess 
of  Denmark,  who  was  deformed,  sent  his  governor,  ]Mr.  Poyntz, 
to  consult  the  Earl  of  Orford  on  the  best  methods  which  he 
could  adopt  to  avoid  the  match.  After  a  moment's  reflection, 
Orford  (who  was  well  aware  of  the  penurious  character  of  the 
King)  advised  him  to  give  his  consent  to  the  marriage  on  con- 
dition of  receiving  an  ample  and  immediate  establishment, 
'  and  believe  me,'  he  added,  '  when  I  say  the  match  will  be  no 
longer  pressed.'  The  Duke  followed  the  advice,  and  the  event 
happened  as  the  dying  statesman  had  foretold.'  ^ 

'  Coxe's  Pelliam.    Introd.  sec.  3. 

*  Coxe's  Walpole,  i.  7i3.    See,  too,  Horace  Walpole's  Memoirs  of  Geoi-ge  II. 
voL  i.  p.  105. 


CH.  III.  WALPOLE'S  SUCCESSORS.  433 

The  political  changes  which  immediately  followed  the  retire- 
ment of  Walpole  may  be  speedily  dismissed.  For  several  years 
they  consisted  chiefly  of  the  antagonism  of  Carteret  and  Pul- 
teney  with  the  Pelhams.  Pulteney,  as  I  have  said,  though 
accepting  a  seat  in  the  CaLinet,  at  first  declined  office,  but  at 
his  desire  the  Earl  of  Wilmington,  the  old  colleague  of  Walpole 
and  a  man  of  the  most  moderate  intelligence,  became  the 
nominal  head  of  the  Government.  He  had  broken  away  from 
Walpole  on  the  question  of  the  Spanish  war,  but  was  otherwise 
thoroughly  identified  with  the  former  Government.  Carteret 
obtained  the  Secretaryship  of  State  for  the  Northern  Depart- 
ment, which  involved  the  direction  of  foreign  affairs.  New- 
castle occupied  the  corresponding  post  in  home  affairs;  his 
brother,  Henry  Pelham,  was  Paymaster  of  the  Forces,  and  Lord 
Hardwicke  continued  to  be  Chancellor.  With  two  or  three 
exceptions  the  Tories  were  still  excluded  from  office,  as  were 
also  Chesterfield  and  Pitt,  who  were  personally  displeasing  to 
the  King,  and  the  offices  of  the  Government  were  divided  in 
tolerably  fair  proportions  between  the  followers  of  the  great 
Whig  leaders  and  the  personal  adherents  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  In  spite  of  all  the  clamour  that  had  been  raised  about 
the  abuses  under  Walpole,  the  system  of  home  government 
continued  essentially  the  same.  The  Septennial  Act  was 
maintained  against  every  attack ;  and  if  there  was  a  little  more 
decorum  in  the  government,  there  was  probably  quite  as  much 
corruption. 

The  foreign  policy  of  the  Government,  however,  gained 
considerably  in  energy,  and  the  change  was  but  one  of  many 
circumstances  that  favoured  Maria  Theresa.  We  have  already 
seen  that  by  October  1741  her  fortunes  had  sunk  to  the  lowest 
ebb,  but  a  great  revulsion  speedily  set  in.  The  martial  enthu- 
siasm of  the  Hungarians,  the  subsidy  from  England,  and  the 
brilliant  military  talents  of  General  Khevenhuller,  restored  her 
armies.  Vienna  was  put  in  a  state  of  defence,  and  at  the  same 
time  jealousies  and  suspicion  made  their  way  among  the  con- 
federates.    The  Electors  of  Bavaria  and  Saxony  were  already  in 

VOL.  I.  29 


434  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  ch.  m. 

some  degree  divided ;  and  the  Germans,  and  especially  Frederick, 
were  alarmed  by  the  growing  ascendency,  and  irritated  by  the 
haughty  demeanour  of  the  French.  In  the  moment  of  her 
extreme  depression,  the  Queen  consented  to  a  concession  which 
England  had  vainly  urged  upon  her  before,  and  which  laid  the 
foundation  of  her  future  success.  In  October  1741  she  entered 
into  a  secret  convention  with  Frederick,  by  which  that  astute 
sovereign  agreed  to  desert  his  allies,  and  desist  from  hostilities, 
on  condition  of  ultimately  obtaining  Lower  Silesia,  with  Breslau 
and  Neisse.  Every  precaution  was  taken  to  ensure  secrecy.  It 
was  arranged  that  Frederick  should  continue  to  besiege  Neisse, 
that  the  town  should  ultimately  be  surrendered  to  him,  and 
that  his  troops  should  then  retire  into  winter  quarters,  and 
take  no  further  part  in  the  war.  As  the  sacrifice  of  a  few 
more  lives  was  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  contracting  parties, 
and  in  order  that  no  one  should  suspect  the  treachery  that  was 
contemplated,  Neisse,  after  the  arrangement  had  been  made  for 
its  surrender,  was  subjected  for  four  days  and  four  nights  to  the 
horrors  of  bombardment.  Frederick  at  the  same  time  talked, 
with  his  usual  cynical  frankness,  to  the  English  ambassador 
about  the  best  way  of  attacking  his  allies  the  French ;  and 
observed,  that  if  the  Queen  of  Hungary  prospered,  he  would 
perhaps  support  her,  if  not — everyone  must  look  for  himself.' 
He  only  assented  verbally  to  this  convention,  and,  no  doubt, 
resolved  to  await  the  course  of  events,  in  order  to  decide  which 
Power  it  was  his  interest  finally  to  betray  ;  but  in  the  mean- 
time the  Austrians  obtained  a  respite,  which  enabled  them  to 
throw  their  whole  forces  upon  their  other  enemies.  Two  brilliant 
campaigns  followed.  The  greater  part  of  Bohemia  was  re- 
covered by  an  army  under  the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  and  the  French 
were  hemmed  in  at  Prague ;  while  another  army,  under 
General  Khevenhuller,  invaded  Upper  Austria,  drove  10,000 
French  soldiers  within  the  walls  of  Linz,  blockaded  them, 
defeated  a  body  of  Bohemians  who  were  sent  to  the  rescue, 
compelled  the  whole  French  army  to  surrender,  and  then,  cross- 
'  See  Carlyle's  FredericJt,  book  xiii.  ch.  5. 


CH.  III.  SECESSION  OF  PREDERICK.  435 

ing  the  frontier,  poured  in  a  resistless  torrent  over  Bavaria. 
The  fairest  plains  of  that  beautiful  land  were  desolated  by  hosts 
of  irregular  troops  from  Hungary,  Croatia,  and  the  Tyrol ;  and 
on  the  12th  of  February  the  Austrians  marched  in  triumph  into 
Munich.  On  that  very  day  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  was  crowned 
Emperor  of  Germany,  at  Frankfort,  under  the  title  of  Charles 
VII.,  and  the  imperial  crown  was  thus,  for  the  first  time,  for 
many  generations,  separated  from  the  House  of  Austria. 

The  wheel  again  turned.  Frederick  witnessed  with  great 
alarm  the  rapid  success  of  the  Austrians ;  he  concluded,  probably 
with  some  reason,  that  if  they  advanced  further  he  would  never 
obtain  the  cession  for  which  he  had  stipulated,  and  he  com- 
plained also  that  the  secret  of  his  truce  had  not  been  strictly 
kept.  He  accordingly  broke  the  convention,  united  himself 
again  with  the  new  Emperor,  and  entered  Moravia.  The  town 
of  Glatz  was  besieged  and  taken,  and  after  several  indecisive 
skirmishes  and  several  abortive  negotiations,  the  fortune  of  the 
war  was  decided  by  a  great  battle  at  Czaslau,  or  Chotusitz,  in 
Bohemia.  The  Austrians  were  commanded  by  Prince  Charles 
of  Lorraine  ;  the  Prussians  by  Frederick  in  person.  The  result 
was  a  great  Prussian  victory.  The  Austrians  were  driven  back, 
with  the  loss  of  18  cannon  and  about  7,000  men. 

Both  parties  now  sincerely  desired  peace.  Frederick  fore- 
saw the  dangers  of  a  complete  French  ascendency  in  Germany, 
and  his  army  was  seriously  weakened.  The  Austrians  had 
retired  in  good  order  at  Czaslau.  The  Prussian  losses  were  but 
little  inferior  to  those  of  the  enemy,  and  their  cavalry  had  been 
almost  annihilated.  On  the  other  hand,  it  appeared  evident  that 
the  intervention  or  non-intervention  of  Prussia  decided  the  for- 
tunes of  the  war,  and  it  was  probable  that  the  French,  unless 
speedily  checked,  would  regain  their  ascendency  in  Bohemia. 
These  considerations,  aided  by  the  active  good  offices  of  England, 
led  to  the  Peace  of  Breslau,  by  which  Austria  ceded  to  Prussia 
all  Lower  and  the  greater  part  of  Upper  Silesia  as  well  as  the 
country  about  Glatz,  while  Frederick  on  his  part  ceased  from 
all  hostility,  withdrew  his  troops  from  the  French  army,  and 


436  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

acknowledged  the  Pragmatic  Sanction.  The  preliminaries  of 
this  peace  were  signed  on  June  11,  and  the  definitive  peace  was 
accepted  on  July  28,  1742.  The  Elector  of  Saxony  also  acceded 
to  it,  and  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  of  withdrawing  from 

the  war. 

The  conditions  of  the  contest  were  thus  profoundly  altered. 
The  first  consequence  was  the  almost  complete  expulsion  of  the 
French  from  Bohemia.  Suddenly  deserted  by  their  allies,  out- 
numbered by  their  enemies,  and  wasted  by  sickness  and  by 
famine,  they  were  driven  from  place  to  place,  and  the  whole 
army  was  at  last  blockaded  in  Prague.  An  army  sent  to  its 
relief  under  the  command  of  Maillebois,  was  repulsed  and  com- 
pelled to  fall  back  on  Bavaria,  and  the  surrender  of  the 
French  appeared  inevitable.  This  fate  was  averted  by  the 
masterly  strategy  of  Belleisle,  who  succeeded,  in  the  midst  of  a 
dark  December  night,  in  evading  the  Austrians,  and  who  con- 
ducted the  bulk  of  his  army  unbroken  for  a  twelve  days'  march 
over  a  waste  of  ice  and  snow  and  through  the  midst  of  a  hostile 
country.  They  had  no  covering  by  night  and  no  subsistence 
except  frozen  bread,  and  they  were  harassed  at  every  step  by  the 
enemy.  Hundreds  died  through  cold  and  hardship.  The  roads 
were  strewn  with  himaan  bodies  stiffening  in  the  frost,  but  every 
cannon  and  banner  was  brought  in  safety  to  Eger,  a  frontier 
town  of  Bohemia,  which  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the  French. 
Prague  held  out  a  little  longer,  but  it  soon  succumbed.  The 
French  commander  declared  that  unless  he  obtained  honourable 
terms  he  would  burn  the  city,  and  in  order  to  save  the  capital 
of  Bohemia,  the  French  garrison  of  6,000  men  were  suffered  to 
march  out  with  the  honours  of  war,  and  to  join  their  comrades  at 
Eger.  On  Jan.  2,  Belleisle  began  his  homeward  march,  and 
the  campaign  had  been  so  deadly  that  of  40,000  men  who  had 
invaded  Germany  only  8,000  recrossed  the  Ehine.  Fleury,  who 
had  been  dragged  into  a  war  which  he  had  never  desired  and  which 
he  was  unfit  to  conduct,  had  already  vainly  sued  for  peace.  His 
overtures  were  spuamed ;  and  the  Austrian  Government,  in  order 
to  sow  dissension  among  its  enemies,  published  the  letter  he  had 


ciH.  ni.  FOREIGN  POLICY  OF  ENGLAND.  437 

written.  Ilis  long  life  had  been  for  the  most  part  upright, 
honoui-able,  and  useful ;  and  if  he  assented  in  his  last  years  to  acts 
which  were  grossly  criminal,  history  will  readily  forgive  faults 
which  were  due  to  the  weakness  of  extreme  old  age.  He  died  in 
January  in  his  ninetieth  year.  In  May,  1743,  Maria  Theresa 
was  crowned  in  Prague. 

The  effects  of  the  change  of  government  in  England  were 
felt  in  almost  every  quarter.  Carteret  at  once  sent  Maria 
Theresa  the  assurance  of  his  full  support,  and  a  new  energy  was 
infused  into  the  war.  The  struggle  between  England  and  Spain 
had  altogether  merged  in  the  great  European  war,  and  the  chief 
efforts  of  the  Spaniards  were  directed  against  the  Austrian 
dominions  in  Italy.  The  kingdom  of  Xaples,  which  had  passed 
under  Austrian  rule  during  the  war  of  the  Succession,  had,  as 
we  have  seen,  been  restored  to  the  Spanish  line  in  the  war 
which  ended  in  1740,  and  Don  Carlos,  who  ruled  it  was  alto 
gether  subservient  to  Spanish  policy.  The  Duke  of  Lorraine, 
the  husband  of  ^Maria  Theresa,  was  sovereign  of  Tuscany  ;  and 
the  Austrian  possessions  consisted  of  the  Duchy  of  Milan,  and 
the  provinces  of  Mantua  and  Placentia.  They  were  garrisoned 
at  the  gpening  of  the  war  by  only  15,000  men,  and  their  most 
dangerous  enemy  was  the  King  of  Sardinia,  who  bad  gradually 
extended  his  dominions  into  Lombardy,  and  whose  army  was, 
probably,  the  largest  and  most  efficient  in  Italy.  '  The  Milanese,' 
his  father  is  reported  to  have  said,  '  is  like  an  artichoke,  to  be 
eaten  leaf  by  leaf,'  and  the  skill  and  perseverance  with  which  for 
many  generations  the  House  of  Savoy  pursued  that  policy,  have 
in  our  own  day  had  their  reward.  Spanish  troops  had  landed  at 
Naples  as  early  as  November  1741.  The  King  of  Sardinia,  the 
Prince  of  Modena,  and  the  Eepublic  of  Genoa  were  on  the  same 
side.  Venice  was  completely  neutral,  Tuscany  was  compelled  to 
declare  herself  so,  and  a  French  army  was  soon  to  cross  the  Alps. 
The  King  of  Sardinia,  however,  at  this  critical  moment,  was 
alarmed  by  the  ambitious  projects  openly  avowed  by  the 
Spaniards,  and  he  was  induced  by  English  influence  to  change 
sides.     He  obtained  the  promise  of  certain  territorial  concessions 


438  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

from  Austria,  and  of  an  annual  subsidy  of  200,000Z.  from  Eng- 
land ;  and  on  these  conditions  he  suddenly  marched  with  an  army 
of  30,000  men  to  the  support  of  the  Austrians.  All  the  plans 
of  the  confederates  were  disconcerted  by  this  defection.  The 
Spaniards  went  into  winter  quarters  near  Bologna  in  October, 
fought  an  unsuccessful  battle  at  Campo  Santo  in  the  follow- 
ing P'ebruary,  and  then  retired  to  Eimini,  leaving  Lom- 
bardy  in  complete  tranquillity.  The  British  fleet  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean had  been  largely  strengthened  by  Carteret,  and  it  did 
good  service  to  the  cause.  It  burnt  a  Spanish  squadron  in  the 
French  port  of  St.  Tropez,  compelled  the  King  of  Naples,  by  the 
threat  of  bombardment,  to  withdraw  his  troops  from  the  Spanish 
army,  and  sign  an  engagement  of  neutrality,  destroyed  large 
provisions  of  corn  collected  by  the  Genoese  for  the  Spanish 
army,  and  cut  off  that  army  from  all  communications  by  sea. 

The  same  good  fortune  attended  the  Austrians  in  every  field. 
In  the  north,  Russia  was  completely  victorious  over  the  Swedes, 
and  the  war  was  terminated  by  the  Peace  of  Abo  in  August  1743. 
A  defensive  alliance,  concluded  between  Elizabeth  of  Russia 
and  George  11.  of  England,  materially  diminished  the  influence 
of  France  in  the  north  of  Europe,  and  a  considerable  sum  was 
sent  from  Russia  to  the  Queen  of  Hungary  as  a  pledge  of  her 
active  support.  In  May  1743  Bavaria,  which  had  been 
reoccupied  by  its  sovereign  the  Emperor  in  the  October  of 
the  preceding  year,  was  again  invaded,  and  it  was  soon 
completely  subjugated.  Six  thousand  Bavarians,  with  their 
baggage,  standards,  and  cannons,  were  captured  at  Erblach. 
A  French  army  under  Broglio  was  driven  beyond  the  Rhine. 
Another  French  army  was  expelled  from  the  Upper  Palati- 
nate. Eger,  the  last  Bohemian  post  occupied  by  the  French, 
was  blockaded,  and  in  September  it  fell.  The  unhappy 
Emperor  fled  hastily  from  Munich,  and  being  defeated  on  all 
sides,  and  ha^^ng  no  hope  of  assistance,  he  signed  a  treaty  of 
neutrality  by  which  he  renounced  all  pretensions  to  the  Austrian 
succession,  and  yielded  his  hereditary  dominions  to  the  Queen 
of  Hungary,  till  the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace.     His  army 


CH.  III.  BRITISH   ARMY   IN   FLANDERS.  439 

was  withd^a^vn  to  Franconia,  and  he  himself  retired  to  Frank- 
fort. 

The  Peace  of  Breslau  had  been  chiefly  the  work  of  Carteret,' 
and  he  displayed  equal  zeal  in  urging  the  Dutch  into  the  war. 
This  object  was  at  last  so  far  accomplished  that  they  very 
reluctantly  consented  to  send  a  contingent  to  a  great  confederate 
army  which  was  being  formed  in  Flanders,  under  the  direction 
of  England  and  the  command  of  the  Earl  of  Stair,  for  the 
purpose  of  acting  against  the  French,  and,  if  possible,  of 
invading  France.  It  ultimately  consisted  of  some  44,000 
men,  and  was  composed  of  about  an  equal  number  of 
British  and  Hanoverian  soldiers,  of  6,000  Hessians,  in  Eng- 
lish pay,  and  of  a  contingent  of  Austrians  and  of  Dutch.  It 
started  from  Flanders  in  February  1742-43,  marched  slowly 
through  the  bishopric  of  Liege,  where  it  was  joined  by  the 
Austrians,  under  the  Duke  of  Ahremberg,  and  by  16,000  Hano- 
verians in  British  pay,  crossed  the  Ehine  on  May  14,  and  en- 
camped on  the  23rd  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Frankfort.  It 
was,  however,  soon  after  hemmed  in  by  a  superior  French  force 
under  Noailles.  The  defiles  above  Aschaflfenburg  and  the  posts 
of  the  Upper  Maine  were  occupied  by  the  French.  The  allies 
were  out-manoeuvred  and  cut  off  from  succours,  and  their  diffi- 
culty in  obtaining  provisions  was  so  great  that  a  capitulation 
seemed  not  improbable.  Under  these  disastrous  circumstances, 
George  II.,  accompanied  by  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  and  Car- 
teret, joined  the  army.  A  great  battle  was  fought  at  Dettingen, 
on  June  27,  and  the  bravery  of  the  allied  forces  and  the  rash- 
ness of  the  Duke  of  Grammont,  which  disconcerted  the  plans  of 
Noailles,  gave  the  victory  to  the  confederates,  extricated  the 
army  from  its  embarrassments,  and  compelled  the  French  to 
recross  the  Maine.  No  other  important  consequences  followed. 
Innumerable  divisions  paralysed  the  army.  The  King  of 
Prussia  showed  hostile  intentions.  The  other  German  princes 
were  divided  in  their  views.  The  Dutch  discouraged  all  pro- 
secution of  the  war,  and  the  allied,  forces  after  successively 

'  Frederick,  Ilist.  de  mon  Tem^»,  ch.  vii. 


440  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

occupying  Hanau,  Worms,  and  Spire,  at  last  retired  to 
winter  quarters  in  Flanders.  A  deadly  hostility  had  sprung  up 
between  the  British  and  the  Hanoverian  troops,  and  public 
opinion  at  home  was  now  violently  opposed  to  Carteret  and  to 

the  war. 

•  This  great  revulsion  of  feeling  is  to  be  ascribed  to  many 
causes.  The  war  I  am  describing  was  one  of  the  most  tangled 
and  complicated  upon  record,  but  amidst  all  its  confused  episodes 
and  various  objects,  one  great  change  was  apparent.  It  had 
been  a  war  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  and 
of  the  integi-ity  of  Austria.  It  had  become  a  war  for  the  con- 
quest and  dismemberment  of  France.  Few  sovereigns  have  been 
more  deeply  injured  than  Maria  Theresa,  and  her  haughty,  ambi- 
tious, and  somewhat  vindictive  nature,  now  flushed  with  a  succes- 
sion of  conquests,  was  burning  to  retaliate  upon  her  enemies. 
She  desired  to  deprive  the  Emperor  of  the  imperial  crown,  and 
to  place  it  on  the  head  of  her  husband,  to  annex  Bavaria  per- 
manently to  the  Austrian  dominions,  to  wrest  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine from  France,  and  Naples  from  the  Spanish  line ;  and  if  it  was 
in  her  power  she  would  undoubtedly  have  attempted  to  recover 
Silesia.  Her  impracticable  temper  and  her  ambitious  views 
had  become  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  pacification  of  Europe. 
She  had  scornfully  rejected  the  overtures  of  Fleury  for  peace. 
She  refused,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  England,  to  grant 
the  Emperor  a  definite  peace,  although  he  asked  only  the  recog- 
nition of  his  perfectly  legal  title  as  Emperor  of  Germany,  and 
the  security  of  his  old  hereditary  dominions.  She  long  refused 
to  grant  the  King  of  Sardinia  the  concessions  that  had  been 
promised,  and  it  was  not  until  a  whole  summer  had  been  wasted, 
and  imtil  the  King  had  threatened  to  go  over  to  her  enemies, 
that  she  consented,  in  September  1743,  to  sign  the  Treaty  of 
Worms.  By  this  treaty  she  at  last  relinquished  in  his  favour 
her  pretensions  to  the  Marquisate  of  Finale,  which  was  then 
in  the  possession  of  the  Grenoese,  ceded  Placentia  and  some 
small  districts  in  Austrian  Italy,  and  made  an  offensive  alli- 
ance with  the  King  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war.     Her  pre- 


CH.  m.  GROWING  UNPOPULARITY  OF  THE  WAR.  .    441 

sent  object  was  the  invasion  of  France  by  two  great  armies,  that 
of  Prince  Charles,  which  was  massed  upon  the  frontiers  of 
Alsace,  and  that  of  the  confederates,  who  had  taken  up  their 
quarters  at  Hanau  and  Worms.  England  had  gone  far  in 
supporting  her  in  this  policy,  but  it  was  open  to  the  very  gravest 
objections.  It  was  one  thing  to  fulfil  the  obligations  of  a  distinct 
treaty  and  to  prevent  the  dismemberment  of  an  Empire,  which 
was  essential  to  the  balance  of  power.  It  was  quite  another 
thing  to  support  Austria  in  projects  of  aggrandisement  which 
alarmed  all  the  conservative  instincts  of  Eiurope,  and  could  only 
be  realised  by  a  long,  bloody,  and  expensive  war.  England  had 
entered  into  the  struggle  as  a  mere  auxiliary  and  for  a  definite 
purpose,  and  her  mission  might  reasonably  be  looked  upon 
as  fulfilled.  Silesia  had,  it  is  true,  been  ceded  to  Prussia,  but 
both  the  Emperor  and  France  would  have  been  perfectly  wil- 
ling to  accept  a  peace  leaving  the  Queen  of  Hungary  in  undis- 
turbed possession  of  all  the  remainder  of  the  Austrian  dominions. 
It  was  maintained,  and  surely  with  reason,  that  England  should 
have  insisted  on  the  acceptance  of  such  a  peace,  and  that  if 
she  could  not  induce  Maria  Theresa  to  acquiesce,  she  should  at 
least  herself  have  withdrawn  from  the  war.^  She  had  not  done 
so.  She  had,  on  the  contrary,  plunged  more  and  more  deeply 
into  Continental  affairs.  By  the  Treaty  of  Worms  she  bound 
herself  to  continue  the  subsidy  of  the  King  of  Sardinia.  She 
was  still  paying  Austrian  troops,  and  a  secret  convention  bind- 
ing her  to  continue  the  subsidy  to  the  Queen  of  Hungary,  '  as 
long  as  the  war  should  continue,  or  the  necessity  of  her  affairs 
should  require,'  as  well  as  a  project  for  bestowing  a  subsidy 
on  the  Emperor,  on  condition  of  his  joining  the  Austrians  against 
his  allies  the  French,  had  both  been  recently  proposed  by  Carteret 
and  the  King,  and  had  only  been  defeated  by  the  Pelham  influ- 
ence at  home.  The  army  of  Flanders  was  an  English  creation, 
and  most  of  its  soldiers  were  either  English  or  in  English  pay. 
By  forming  it,  England  liad  completely  abandoned  the  wise 

'  See  these  arguments  powerfully  stated  in  a  speech  by  Pitt,  Dec.  1, 
1743  {Anecdutei  of  Chatham,  vol.  i.). 


442  ENGLAND  IN  THE    EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

policy  of  confining  herself  as  much  as  possible  to  maritime  war- 
fare, and  she  had  also,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  wishes  of  the 
Dutch,  added  very  seriously  to  the  dangers  of  the  war  by  gratui- 
tously attracting  it  towards  the  Dutch  barrier. 

But  that  which  made  the  war  most  unpopular  was  the 
alleged  subordination  of  English  to  Hanoverian  interests.  On 
no  other  subject  was  English  public  opinion  so  sensitive,  and  the 
orators  of  the  Opposition  exerted  all  their  powers  to  inflame  the 
feeling.  The  invective  of  Pitt,  who  declared  that  '  it  was  now 
too  apparent  that  this  great,  this  powerful,  this  formidable 
kingdom  is  considered  only  as  a  province  to  a  despicable  Elec- 
torate;' the  sarcasm  of  Chesterfield,  who  suggested  that  the  one 
effectual  method  of  destroying  Jacobitism  would  be  to  bestow 
Hanover  on  the  Pretender,  as  the  English  people  would  never 
again  tolerate  a  ruler  from  that  country ;  the  bitter  witticism 
of  a  popular  pamphleteer,^  who,  alluding  to  the  white  horse  in 
the  arms  of  Hanover,  selected  for  his  motto  the  text  in  the 
Kevelation,  '  I  looked,  and  behold  a  pale  horse,  and  his  name 
that  sat  on  him  was  Death,  and  Hell  followed,'  only  repre- 
sented in  an  emphatic  form  the  common  sentiment  both  of  the 
army  and  of  the  people.  The  English  and  Hanoverians  who 
fought  side  by  side  at  Dettingen,  probably  hated  each  other  more 
intensely  than  they  hated  the  French,  and  the  alleged  partiality 
of  the  King  to  the  Hanoverians  even  led  to  the  angry  resignation 
of  Lord  Stair. 

It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  amid  much  misrepresentation 
and  exaggeration  there  was  some  real  ground  of  complaint,  and 
that  England,  as  was  said,  was  too  often  '  steered  by  a  Hanoverian 
rudder.'  As  the  sovereign  of  a  small  Continental  state  con- 
stantly exposed  to  French  ambition,  as  a  German  prince  keenly 
interested  in  German  politics,  and  especially  anxious  to  have  no 
superior  in  Germany  except  the  Emperor,  George  II.  had  a  far 
stronger  interest  in  desiring,  at  one  time  the  invasion  and  dis- 
memberment of  Trance,  and  at  another  the  repression  of  the 
growing  power  of  Prussia,  than  he  could  have  had  as  a  mere 

'  Dr.  Shebbear. 


CH.  HI.  THE  HANOVERIA'JJ   TROOPS.  443 

sovereign  of  England.  The  Electorate  lay  nearest  his  heart. 
Hanoverian  interests  undoubtedly  coloured  his  foreign  policy,  and 
he  had  a  strong  disposition  to  employ  the  resources  of  his  king- 
dom in  the  interests  of  his  Electorate.  The  manner  in  which 
in  the  former  reign  England  had  been  embroiled  with  both 
Sweden  and  Russia  on  account  of  Bremen  and  Verden,  the 
Treaty  of  Hanover,  the  exaggerated  German  subsidies  which 
had  followed  it,  and  the  undoubted  fact  that  many  of  those 
subsidies  were  rendered  necessary  only  by  the  position  of 
Hanover,  had  already  produced  a  jealousy  which  the  events 
of  the  new  war  greatly  increased.  The  treaty  of  neutrality 
was  regarded  as  a  disgraceful  abandonment,  and  the  pro- 
longation of  the  war,  the  attempted  multiplication  of  German 
subsidies,  and  the  too  frequent  custom  of  taking  impor- 
tant resolutions,  affecting  England,  on  the  Continent  with  little 
or  no  consultation  with  the  English  ministers,  were  all  cited  as 
examples  of  the  partiality  of  the  King.  The  most  flagrant  case, 
however,  was  his  determination  to  throw  the  chief  expense  of 
the  Hanoverian  army,  in  time  of  war,  upon  England.  After 
the  Treaty  of  Ereslau  he  declared  his  intention  of  reducing  the 
Hanoverian  army  to  its  peace  footing,  as  his  German  dominions 
were  then  unmolested,  and  the  expense  was  too  great  for  their 
resources,  and  his  ministers  in  England  then  proceeded  to  prevent 
this  measure  by  taking  16,000  Hanoverian  troops  into  British 
pay.  No  measure  of  the  time  excited  such  violent  hostility, 
and  the  intervention  of  Lord  Orford  was  required  to  carry  it. 
Pitt  openly  declared  that  the  interest  of  England  imperatively 
required  complete  separation  from  Hanover.  In  the  House  of 
Lords  twenty-four  peers  sighed  a  protest  against  it,  in  language 
so  bitterly  offensive  to  the  sovereign  that  it  almost  savoured  of 
revolution.  They  stated  that  some  of  the  Hanoverian  troops 
had  refused  to  form  the  first  line  at  Dettingen,  that  others  dis- 
obeyed the  English  general  after  the  battle,  that  the  greater 
number,  '  not  contented  to  avoid  being  of  any  use  either  in 
front  or  in  the  rear,  determined  to  be  of  use  nowhere,  and 
halted  as  soon  as  they  came  within  sight  and  reach  of  the  battle, 


444  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

though  pressed  by  the  British  ofiBcers,  and  invited  by  the  British 
soldiers,  to  share  the  glory,  and  complete,  as  they  might  have 
done,  the  victory  of  the  day.'  They  contended  that  '  the  future 
co-operation  of  our  national  troops  with  these  mercenaries  has 
been  rendered  impracticable,  and  even  their  meeting  dangerous ; ' 
they  complained  of  '  the  many  instances  of  partiality  by  which 
the  Hanoverians  were  unhappily  distinguished,  and  our  brave 
fellow  subjects,  the  British  forces,  undeservedly  discouraged  ' ;  of 
*  the  constant  preference '  given  to  the  former  '  in  quarters, 
forao-e.  &c.' :  of  the  fact  that  '  the  Hanoverian  Guards  had  for 
some  days  done  duty  upon  his  JNIajesty  at  Aschaffenburg,' 
which,  they  added,  'we  look  upon  as  the  highest  dishonour 
to  his  Majesty  and  this  nation';  of  'the  abject  flattery  and 
criminal  misrepresentation  which  this  partiality,  blameless  in 
itself,  has  unhappily  given  occasion  to,  and  by  which  in  its  turn 
it  has  been  fomented' ;  of  the  many  instances  'wherein  the  blood 
and  treasure  of  this  nation  have  been  lavishly  employed  when 
no  British  interest,  and,  as  we  conceive,  some  foreign  interest 
alone,  was  concerned.'  That  '  the  interests  of  one  country  are 
carried  on  in  subordination  to  those  of  another,  constitutes,'  they 
said,  'the  true  and  mortifying  definition  of  a  province,'  and  they 
insinuated,  in  no  obscure  terms,  that  England  was  actually  in 
this  position,  that  '  an  inferior  German  principality  was  really, 
and  Great  Britain  only  nominally,  the  director  '  of  the  policy  of 
the  empire.^ 

Pamphlets,  the  most  remarkable  of  which  were  ascribed  to 

'  Rogers'  Protest  of  the  Lords,  ii.  made  by  Act  of  Parliament  incapable 

37-42.     Speaker  Onslow  relates  the  of  inheriting  and  enjoying  the  Crown 

following  remarkable  dialogue  with  andpossessingtheElectoral  dominions 

Walpole  on  the  subject,  '  A  little  while  at  the  same  time  ?  "  My  answer  was  : 

before  Sir  R.  Walpole 's  fall,  and  as  "  Sir,  it  will  be  as  a  message  from 

a  popular  act  to  save  himself  (for  he  Heaven."     He  replied,    "  It  wull  be 

went  very    unwillingly    out   of    his  done,"  but  it  was  not  done,  and  1 

offices   and  power)  he   took  me  one  have  good  reason  to  believe  it  would 

day  aside  and  said :  "  What  will  you  have  been  opposed  and  rejected  at 

say.  Speaker,  if  this  hand  of  mine  this  time,  because  it  came  from  him, 

shall  bring  a  message  from  the  King  and  by  the  means  of  those  who  had 

to  the  House  of  Commons  declaring  always  been  most  clamorous  for  it.' — 

his   consent  to  having    any   of    his  Speaker  Onslow's  remarks,  in  Coxe's 

family  after  his    own  death  to  be  Walpole,  vol.  ii.  pp.  571-572. 


CH.  III.  DEATH  OF  LORD  WILMINGTON.  445 

the  pen  of  Chesterfield,  containing  similar  accusations  in  even 
stronger  language,  were  widely  circulated,'  and  no  agitation  was 
necessary  to  strengthen  the  indignation  at  the  German  policy  of 
the  Court.  Of  that  policy  Carteret  was  the  special  representative. 
He  was  usually  abroad  with  the  King.  He  based  his  power 
chiefly  on  his  influence  upon  the  King's  mind,  he  cordially 
threw  himself  into  the  Iviug's  views  about  the  German  war, 
and  he  aimed  at  a  German  coalition,  for  the  purpose  of 
wresting  Alsace  and  Lorraine  from  France,  and  thus  com- 
pensating Maria  Theresa  for  the  loss  of  Silesia.  His  arro- 
gance or  recklessness  offended  all  with  whom  he  came  in 
contact.  Newcastle,  especially,  he  treated  with  habitual  inso- 
lence, and  he  conteijiptuously  neglected  that  traffic  in  places 
which  was  then  so  essential  to  political  power.  He  speedily 
became  the  most  unpopular  man  in  the  country,  and  his  un- 
popularity was  not  atoned  for  by  any  very  splendid  success. 
There  was  imdoubtedly  abundance  of  vigour,  and  considerable 
ability  displayed  in  the  measures  I  have  enumerated,  but 
Carteret  did  not,  like  Pitt,  possess  the  art  of  inspiring  the 
nation  or  the  army  with  a  high  military  enthusiasm,  of  select- 
ing the  ablest  men  for  the  most  important  commands,  or  of 
directing  his  blows  against  the  most  vulnerable  points  of  the 
enemy.  The  formation  of  the  army  of  Flanders  was  probably  a 
mistake.  The  issue  of  the  campaign  was  miserably  abortive, 
and  there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  Newcastle  judged  wisely 
in  refusing  to  associate  England  with  a  project  for  the  invasion 
and  the  dismemberment  of  France. 

Under  these  circumstances  a  conflict  between  the  two  sec- 
tions of  the  Government  was  inevitable.  Lord  "Wilmington 
died  in  July  1743,  having  held  the  chief  power  for  little  more 
than  sixteen  months.  Lord  Bath,  who  clearly  perceived  the 
mistake  he  had  made  in  declining  office,  now  eagerly  aspired  to 
the  vacant  place,  and  he  was  warmly  supported  by  Carteret,  who 

'  See    The    Case  of  the   Uanover  passages  from  the  principal  pamphlets 

Troops,  the  Interest  of  Hanover,  the  against  these  troops  ■will  be  found  in 

Vindication  of  the  Case  of  the  Han-  Faction  Defeated  by  the  Evidence  of 

(Ker  Troops.     A  curious  collection  of  Facts,  pp.  124-125  (7th  ed.). 


446  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  en.  m. 

designed  to  retain  for  himself  the  direction  of  the  war,  and  to 
strengthen  his  position  by  bringing  into  office  a  considerable 
number  of  Tories.  Bath  was  personally  almost  equally  ob- 
noxious to  the  King  and  to  the  people,  but  the  influence  of 
Carteret  over  the  royal  mind  was  so  great  that  he  would 
probably  have  gained  his  point  had  not  the  popular  clamour 
been  supported  by  the  still  powerful  voice  of  Orford,  who  repre- 
sented to  the  King  the  danger  of  admitting  Tories  to  office, 
and  the  extreme  and  growing  unpopularity  of  "his  Grovernment. 
By  the  influence  of  the  old  statesman,  the  Pelham  interest  be- 
came supreme,  Henry  Pelham  obtaining  the  position  of  Prime 
Minister.  Being  the  younger  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle, 
he  was  supported  by  a  vast  amount  of  family  and  borough 
influence,  and  without  any  great  or  shining  talents  he  succeeded 
in  playing  a  very  considerable  part  in  English  history.  He  had 
been  iirst  brought  into  office  chiefly  by  the  recommendation  of 
Walpole,  had  supported  his  patron  faithfully  in  the  contest 
about  the  excise,  and  in  the  disastrous  struggle  of  1740  and 
1741,  and  was  looked  upon  as  the  natural  heir  of  his  policy. 
Like  Walpole,  he  had  none  of  the  talents  that  are  necessary  for 
the  successful  conduct  of  war,  and  was,  perhaps  for  that  very 
reason,  warmly  in  favour  of  peace.  Like  Walpole,  too,  he  was 
thoroughly  conversant  with  questions  of  finance,  and  almost 
uniformly  successful  in  dealing  with  them.  A  timid,  desponding, 
and  somewhat  fretful  man,  with  little  energy  either  of  character 
or  intellect,  he  possessed  at  least,  to  a  high  degree,  good  sense, 
industry,  knowledge  of  business,  and  parliamentary  experience ; 
his  manners  were  conciliatory  and  decorous,  and  he  was  con- 
tent to  hold  the  reins  of  power  very  loosely,  freely  admitting 
competitors  to  office,  and  allowing  much  divergence  of  opinion. 
Lord  Hardwicke,  the  greatest  lawyer  of  his  day,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  who  ever  took  part  in  English  politics,  was  his  warm 
friend,  and  he  attached  to  his  cause  both  Chesterfield  and 
Pitt.  After  a  protracted  struggle  in  the  Cabinet,  Carteret, 
who,  by  the  death  of  his  mother,  had  become  Lord  Granville, 
was  compelled  to  yield,  and  resigned  office  in  November  1744. 


CH.  III.  ESCAPE   OF   THE  FRENCH   FLEETS.  447 

The  ascendency  of  the  Pelhams  in  England,  however,  was 
far  from  leading  to  peace.  On  the  contrary,  in  no  other  stage 
of  the  war  did  the  martial  energies  of  Europe  blaze  so  fiercely 
or  extend  so  widely  as  in  1744  or  1745.  The  death  of  Fleury 
removed  the  chief  pacific  influence  from  the  councils  of  France  ; 
and  Cardinal  Tencin,  who  succeeded  him,  and  who  is  said  to 
have  obtained  his  hat  by  the  friendship  of  the  Pretender,  re- 
solved to  signalise  his  government  by  the  invasion  of  England. 
15,000  men,  under  the  command  of  Marshal  Saxe,  were 
assembled  for  that  purpose  at  Dunkirk.  A  powerful  fleet 
sailed  from  Brest  and  Eochefort  for  their  protection,  and  the 
young  Pretender  arrived  fi'om  Eome  to  accompany  the  expe- 
dition. In  England  every  preparation  was  made  for  a  deadly 
struggle.  The  forts  on  the  Thames  and  Medway  were 
strengthened.  Several  regiments  were  marched  to  the  southern 
coast ;  the  Kentish  JNIilitia  were  put  under  arms ;  troops  were 
recalled  from  the  Netherlands,  and  application  was  made  to  the 
States-Greneral  for  the  6,000  men  which  in  case  of  invasion 
Holland  was  bound  by  treaty  to  furnish.  For  a  few  weeks  party 
warfare  almost  ceased,  but  in  order  to  guard  against  every 
attempt  at  rebellion,  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended, 
and  a  proclamation  issued  for  enforcing  the  laws  against  Papists 
and  Nonjurors.  Towards  the  end  of  February,  the  French 
fleet  appeared  in  the  Channel ;  and,  perceiving  no  enemy,  the 
commander  sent  off  a  rapid  message  to  Dunkirk,  to  hasten  the 
embarkation,  and  soon  after  anchored  off  Dungeness  Point.  At 
this  critical  moment  the  English  fleet,  which  was  greatly  superior 
in  numbers,  doubled  the  South  Foreland.  An  action  seemed 
imminent,  but  wind  and  tide  were  both  unfavourable,  and  Sir 
John  Norris,  who  commanded  the  English,  resolved  to  postpone 
it  till  the  morrow.  That  night  a  great  tempest  arose,  before 
which  the  French  fleet  fled  in  safety,  but  wbicli  scattered  far 
and  wide  the  transports,  and  put  an  end  for  the  present  to  all 
projects  of  invasion. 

It  is  a  somewhat  curious  coincidence,  tliat,  almost  at  the 
same  time  when  a  French  fleet  escaped  from  the  English  in  the 


448  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  in. 

Channel,  another  fleet  had  a  similar  fortune  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean. The  comhined  fleet  of  the  French  and  Spaniards  was 
blockaded  in  Toulon  by  the  British,  under  Admiral  Matthews. 
On  the  9th  of  February  it  sailed  from  the  harbour,  and  a 
general  engagement  ensued.  The  battle  on  the  part  of  the 
English  officers  appears  to  have  been  grossly  mismanaged  ;  and 
the  mismanagement  was  in  a  great  degTee  due  to  a  deadly 
feud  which  prevented  all  cordial  co-operation  between  the 
commander  and  the  Vice-Admiral  Lestock.  Night  closed  on  the 
action  without  any  decisive  result,  but  next  morning  the  fleet 
of  the  enemy  was  in  flight.  A  pursuit  was  ordered,  and  the 
Vice-Admiral  had  gained  considerably  upon  the  fugitives,  when 
the  English  ships  were  somewhat  unaccountably  ordered  to 
retrace  their  steps,  and  the  enemy  made  their  way  in  safety  to 
Carthagena  and  Alicante.  The  escape  of  these  two  fleets  threw 
much  discredit  upon  the  naval  enterprise  of  England,  and  the 
Admiral  and  Vice-Admiral  of  the  Mediterranean  fleet  mutually 
accused  each  other.  There  appear  to  have  been  grave  faults 
on  both  sides  ;  but  the  decision  of  the  court-martial  was  given 
against  Admiral  Matthews,  who  was  removed  from  the  service, 
and  several  commanders  of  ships  were  cashiered. 

England  and  France,  though  taking  a  leading  part  in  the 
war,  had  hitherto  been  engaged  only  as  auxiliaries,  and,  though 
they  had  met  in  so  many  fields,  they  were  still  nominally  at 
peace.  This  unnatural  state  of  things  now  terminated.  In 
March  France  declared  war  against  England,  and  in  April 
against  Austria,  and  she  at  the  same  time  prepared  to  throw 
her  full  energies  upon  the  Austrian  Netherlands.  A  French 
army  of  about  80,000  men,  under  the  able  leadership  of 
Marshal  Saxe,  animated  by  the  presence  of  Lewis  XV.,  and 
accompanied  by  a  train  of  artillery  that  was  said  to  have  been 
superior  to  any  hitherto  known,  poured  over  the  frontier,  and 
was  everywhere  victorious.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  among 
its  officers,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  and  successful  was 
by  profession  a  Cliurchman.  The  Prince  of  Clermont,  the 
great-grandson  of  the  illustrious   Conde,  was  the  Abbe  of  St. 


cu.  III.  FREDERICK  RENEWS  HOSTILITIES.  449 

Germain  des  Pres,  but  the  Pope,  Clement  XII.,  gave  him  a  dis- 
pensation to  take  part  in  the  war,  and  he  directed  the  principal 
attacks  upon  the  fortress  of  Ypres.  The  allies  were  weak, 
divided,  and  incapable.  In  two  months  Ypres,  Courtrai,  Menin, 
and  Fumes  were  taken,  and  the  whole  of  the  Low  Countries 
would  probably  have  been  conquered,  had  not  the  invaders  been 
arrested  by  sinister  news  from  Alsace. 

That  province  had  been  left  under  the  protection  of  Marshal 
Coigny,  and  of  the  Bavarian  General  Seckendorf,  whose  com- 
bined armies  were  believed  to  be  sufficient  to  guard  the  passes 
of  the  Ehine.  General  Khevenhuller  had  died  in  the  previous 
winter ;  but  Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine,  who  commanded  the 
Austrians,  and  who  was  accompanied  by  Marshal  Traun,  one  of 
the  ablest  soldiers  in  the  Austrian  service,  succeeded  in  deceiving 
his  enemies,  and  his  army  in  three  bodies  crossed  the  Ehine.  The 
war  raged  fiercely  around  Spire,  Weissenburg,  and  Saveme, 
in  that  unhappy  country  which  has  been  fated  in  so  many 
contests  to  be  the  battlefield  of  Europe.  The  Austrians,  with 
an  army  of  60,000  men,  efifected  a  secure  lodgment  in  Alsace, 
and  advanced  to  the  frontiers  of  Lorraine ;  and  the  French 
King,  leaving  Marshal  Saxe  with  30,000  men,  to  maintain  his 
conquests  in  the  Netherlands,  hastened  with  the  remainder  of 
the  army  to  its  relief.  The  King  fell  ill  at  Metz,  and  appeared 
for  a  time  at  the  point  of  death,  but  after  a  somewhat  dangerous 
delay,  his  troops  arrived  by  forced  marches  in  Alsace,  which 
seemed  destined  to  be  the  scene  of  the  decisive  struggle  of 
the  year,  when  a  new  enemy  suddenly  appeared  in  the  field, 
and  again  diverted  the  course  of  the  war. 

This  enemy  was  Frederick  of  Prussia.  No  prince  of  his 
time  perceived  his  interests  more  clearly,  eg-  acted  on  them  with 
■  such  combined  secrecy,  energy,  and  skill ;  and  as  he  was  at  the 
head  of  one  of  the  best  armies  in  Europe,  and  as  it  cost  him 
nothing  to  break  a  treaty  or  to  abandon  an  ally,  he  succeeded 
in  a  very  gi-eat  degree  in  making  himself  the  arbiter  of  the 
war.  By  the  Peace  of  Breslau  he  had  once  already  suddenly 
changed  its  fortunes,  and  brought  about  the  almost  complete 

VOL.  I.  30 


450  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

destruction  of  one  of  the  armies  of  the  ally  whom  he  had 
deserted,  and  he  had  hitherto  resisted  all  overtures  to  break  the 
peace.  He  calculated,  as  he  himself  informs  us,  that  '  the 
longer  the  war  should  continue  the  more  would  the  resources  of 
the  House  of  Austria  be  exhausted,  while  the  longer  Prussia 
remained  at  peace  the  more  strength  she  would  acquire.'  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  was  one  of  his  maxims  that  'it  is  a 
capital  error  in  politics  to  trust  a  reconciled  enemy  ; '  and  there 
was  much  in  the  present  aspect  of  affairs  to  excite  both  his 
cupidity  and  his  fears.  He  was  alarmed  by  the  ascendency  the 
Austrians  had  obtained  in  Alsace,  and  by  the  prospect  of  the 
annexation  of  Lorraine ;  by  the  growing  ambition  of  the 
Queen  of  Hungary,  which  made  it  peculiarly  unlikely  that  she 
would  permanently  acquiesce  in  the  alienation  of  Silesia,  and 
by  intelligence  that  Saxony  had  agreed  to  join  in  the  league 
against  France.  It  was  a  suspicious  circumstance  that  the 
Treaty  of  Worms,  while  enumerating  and  guaranteeing  many 
other  treaties,  had  made  no  mention  of  the  Peace  of  Breslau,  by 
which  he  held  Silesia;  and  George  II.  was  reported  to  have 
used  some  language  implying  that  he,  at  least,  would  not  be 
reluctant  to  see  that  province  restored.  Even  before  the  close 
of  1743  Frederick  had  been  in  secret  negotiation  with  France, 
and  the  events  in  Alsace  strengthened  his  determination.  Maria 
Theresa  had  not  committed  the  smallest  act  since  the  peace  of 
Breslau  that  could  be  construed  into  hostility  to  Prussia,  but 
Frederick  concluded,  with  reason,  that  she  had  never  forgiven 
his  past  treachery,  and  he  feared  that  if  she  became  too  strong, 
she  would  endeavour  to  drive  him  from  Silesia.  This  might  be 
the  result  if  she  were  victorious  in  Alsace.  It  might  be  equally 
the  result  if  France,  alarmed  at  her  progress,  made  peace,  and 
retired  from  the  war.  On  the  other  hand,  the  wars  of  Alsace, 
the  Netherlands,  and  Italy  had  left  the  Austrian  provinces  almost 
undefended,  and  the  King  saw  the  possibility  of  effecting  a 
new  spoliation  by  annexing  a  portion  of  Bohemia  to  his  domi- 
nions. After  some  unsuccessful  negotiation  with  Russia,  he 
signed  secret  conventions  with  the  Emperor,  France,  the  Elector 


cH    III.  WAR  IN  BOHEMIA  AND   ITALY.  451 

Palatine,  and  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  ;  ani  engaged  to  invade 
Bohenaia,  stipulating  that  a  considerable  portion  of  that  country 
which  adjoined  Silesia  should  be  annexed  to  his  dominions. 
In  August  1744  he  issued  a  manifesto,  declaring  that  he  had 
taken  arms  to  support  the  rights  of  the  Emperor,  to  defend 
the  liberty  and  restore  the  peace  of  the  Germanic  empire. 
He  marched  through  Saxony,  in  defiance  of  the  wishes  of  the 
Elector,  invaded  Bohemia,  captm-ed  Prague,  with  its  entire 
garrison,  on  September  16,  and  speedily  reduced  all  Bohemia 
to  the  east  of  the  Moldau.  At  the  same  time  a  united 
army  of  Bavarians  and  Hessians  expelled  the  Austrians  from 
the  greater  part  of  Bavaria,  and  on  October  22  reinstated  the 
Emperor  in  Mmiich.  At  this  point,  however,  his  usual  good 
fortune  abandoned  Frederick.  Maria  Theresa  again  fled  to 
Hungary,  and  was  again  received  with  an  enthusiasm  that  com- 
pletely disconcerted  her  enemies.  An  army  of  44,000  men 
was  speedily  equipped  in  Hungary,  while  on  the  other  side 
Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine  and  Marshal  Traun  hastened  to 
abandon  Alsace,  effected,  with  scarcely  any  loss,  a  masterly 
retreat  over  the  Ehine,  in  the  presence  of  the  united  French 
army,  and  marched  rapidly  upon  Bohemia.  The  irregular 
troops,  which  played  so  prominent  a  part  in  Austrian  warfare, 
assisted  as  they  were  by  the  good  wishes  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion, and  by  the  nature  of  the  country,  soon  reduced  the 
Prussians  to  extreme  distress.  The  villages  were  deserted. 
No  peasant  came  to  the  camp  to  sell  provisions.  The  defiles 
of  the  mountains  that  surround  Bohemia  swarmed  with 
hussars  and  Croats,  who  intercepted  convoys  and  cut  off 
intelligence ;  and  their  success  was  so  great  that  on  one  occa- 
sion the  King  and  army  remained  for  four  weeks  absolutely 
without  news.  To  add  to  their  disasters,  20,000  Saxon  troops 
marched  to  the  assistance  of  Prince  Charles,  while  a  severe 
winter  greatly  aggravated  the  sufferings  of  the  invaders.  A 
rapid  retreat  became  necessary,  and  the  Prussians  w^ere 
compelled  to  abandon  all  their  conquests,  and  to  retire 
broken,  baffled,  and  dispirited  into  Silesia.     The  P'rench  and 


452  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

the  Emperor  were  the  only  gainers.  Marshal  Saxe  main- 
tained his  position  in  the  Netherlands.  Alsace  was  freed  from 
its  invaders,  and  the  French,  crossing  the  Ehine,  laid  siege 
to  the  important  town  of  Friburg.  The  Austrian  General 
Damnitz  defended  it  for  thirty-five  days,  till  it  was  little  more 
than  a  mass  of  ruins,  and  till  half  the  garrison  and  15,000  of 
the  besiegers  had  been  killed ;  and  its  capture  concluded  the 
campaign. 

While  these  events  were  happening  in  Germany,  Italy  also 
was  the  theatre  of  a  bloody,  desolating,  but  utterly  indecisive 
war.  Maria  Theresa  and  the  King  of  Sardinia  were  now  pro- 
fessedly united,  but  they  insisted  on  pursuing  separate  ends. 
The  interests  of  the  King  were  in  the  north,  and  his  immediate 
object  was  the  conquest  of  Finale.  The  Austrians,  on  the  other 
hand,  drove  the  Spaniards  southwards  from  near  Eimini  to  the 
Neapolitan  frontier,  when  the  King  of  Naples,  breaking  the 
neutrality  he  had  signed,  marched  to  the  war  with  an  army  of 
15,000  men.  The  Austrians,  outnumbered  and  baffled,  made 
one  daring  effort  to  retrieve  their  fortunes,  and  succeeded,  in 
the  night  of  August  10,  in  surprising  the  head-quarters  of  the 
King  of  Naples  at  Velletri.  The  King  and  the  Duke  of 
Modena  were  all  but  killed,  and  a  long  and  most  bloody  fight 
ensued.  At  last  the  Austrians,  who  had  been  disorganised  by 
the  opportunities  of  plunder,  gave  way,  and  the  victory 
remained  with  the  allies.  The  malaria  arising  from  the  Pon- 
tine marshes  soon  did  its  work  among  the  German  soldiers,  and 
in  November  the  army  retired,  in  a  greatly  reduced  condition,  to 
the  neighbourhood  of  Eimini,  while  their  enemies  were  quartered 
between  Viterbo  and  Civita  Vecchia.  The  King  of  Sardinia, 
in  the  meantime,  was  engaged  in  a  desperate  contest  with  an 
invading  army  of  French  and  Spaniards,  which  forced  its  way 
through  Nice,  fighting  almost  at  every  step,  invested  Coni,  and 
defeated  a  large  force  that  was  sent  to  its  relief.  Genoa 
would  have  assisted  the  invaders,  but  was  intimidated  by  the 
English  fleet ;  and,  in  spite  of  many  successes,  the  French  were 
unable  to  take  Coni,  and   on   the   approach    of  winter   they 


CH.  III.  EVENTS   OF    1745.  453 

recrossed  the  Alps,  having  lost,  it  is  said,  not  less  than  10,000 
men  in  the  campaign. 

So  ended  the  year  1744,  during  which  a  fearful  sum  of 
human  misery  had  been  inflicted  on  the  world.  Bohemia, 
Bavaria,  the  Austrian  Netherlands  and  Italy  had  been  desolated 
by  hostile  forces.  Tens  of  thousands  of  lives  had  been  sacrificed, 
millions  of  pounds  had  been  uselessly  squandered,  all  the 
interests  of  civilisation  and  industry  had  been  injured  or  neg- 
lected, but  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  a  single  important  result 
had  been  achieved.  The  relative  forces  of  the  belligerents  at  the 
end  of  the  year  were  almost  the  same  as  they  had  been  at  the  be- 
ginning, and  there  was  as  yet  no  sign  of  the  approach  of  peace. 

In  1 745,  however,  the  clouds  began  in  some  degree  to  break. 
On  January  8,  an  offensive  alliance  was  concluded  between 
England,  Holland,  Austria,  and  Saxony,  by  which  the  King  of 
Poland  agreed,  as  Elector  of  Saxony,  to  furnish  30,000  troops 
for  the  defence  of  Bohemia  on  condition  of  receiving  a  subsidy 
of  100,000^  from  England,  and  of  50,000^.  from  Holland.  On 
January  20  the  Emperor  Charles  VII.  died,  broken  alike  by  sorrow 
and  by  sickness  ;  and  the  young  Elector,  refusing  to  become  a 
candidate  for  the  Imperial  dignity,  made  earnest  overtures  for 
peace.  The  Duke  of  Lorraine,  the  husband  of  Maria  Theresa,  was 
candidate  for  the  Empire,  and  the  Elector  agreed  to  support  him, 
to  withdraw  his  troops  from  the  war,  and  to  recognise  the  Prag- 
matic Sanction,  provided  his  Bavarian  dominions  were  secured, 
and  the  validity  of  his  father's  election  was  recognised.  On  April 
22  a  peace  between  Austria  and  Bavaria  was  signed  on  these 
conditions  at  Fuessen,  and  in  September,  to  the  great  disap- 
pointment of  French  politicians,  the  Imperial  dignity  reverted 
to  the  House  of  Austria  by  the  almost  unanimous  election  of  the 
Duke  of  Lorraine  as  Emperor  of  Germany.  Still  more  impor- 
tant was  the  peace  between  Austria  and  Prussia,  which  was 
negotiated  at  the  end  of  the  year.  As  may  very  easily  be 
imderstood,  Maria  Theresa  felt  towards  Frederick  more  bitterly 
than  towards  any  other  enemy.  The. recovery  of  Silesia  was 
the  object  now  nearest  her  heart.  Upon  the  failure  of  Frederick's 


454  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  m. 

last  campaign  the  war  had  been  carried  into  that  province,  and, 
as  all  the  forces  that  had  been  employed  in  Alsace  were  directed 
to  its  conquest,  success  appeared  very  probable.  The  reputation 
of  Frederick  was  lowered  by  defeat.  The  French  were  concen- 
trating all  their  efforts  upon  the  Netherlands.  Bavaria  had 
seceded  from  the  war,  and  the  King  of  Poland,  having  at  last 
extorted  from  Maria  Theresa  the  promise  of  some  territorial 
cessions  in  Silesia  in  the  event  of  success,  now  threw  himself 
heartily  into  the  struggle.  The  extraordinary  military  abilities 
of  the  Prussian  King,  and  the  strenuous  exertions  of  the  Pelham 
ministry  in  favour  of  peace,  overcame  this  combination.  After 
several  inconsiderable  skirmishes,  Frederick,  on  June  3,  defeated 
the  Austrians  under  Prince  Charles  in  the  great  battle  of  Hohen- 
friedberg,  and  soon  after  followed  them  in  their  retreat  into 
Bohemia.  England  then  urgently  interposed  in  favour  of  peace. 
Her  ambassador  urged  that  the  Austrian  Netherlands  would  in- 
evitably succumb  before  the  French  if  the  German  war  continued, 
and  he  represented  how  impossible  it  was  for  England  to  con- 
tinue the  payment  of  subsidies  to  the  allies,  which  in  this  year 
amounted  to  not  less  than  1,178,753^.  The  Queen  refusing  to 
yield,  England  for  her  own  part  signed  on  August  26  a  prelimi- 
nary convention  with  Prussia  for  the  purpose  of  re-establishing 
peace,  by  which  she  guaranteed  to  Prussia  the  possession  of 
Silesia  according  to  the  Treaty  of  Breslau,  and  promised  to  use 
every  effort  to  obtain  for  it  a  general  guarantee  by  all  the 
Powers  of  Europe.  The  Queen  of  Hungary  was  indignant 
but  still  unshaken,  and  she  resolved  to  continue  the  war.  On 
September  30,  however,  the  Austrians  were  again  completely 
defeated  at  Sohr.  On  December  15  the  Saxons  were  routed  at 
Kesseldorf,  and  the  Prussians  soon  after  marched  in  triumph 
into  Dresden.  Maria  Theresa  at  last  yielded,  and  on  December 
25  she  signed  the  Peace  of  Dresden,  guaranteeing  Frederick  the 
possession  of  Silesia  and  Glatz,  while  Frederick  for  his  part 
evacuated  Saxony,  recognised  the  validity  of  the  Imperial  elec- 
tion, and  acknowledged  the  disputed  suffrage  of  Bohemia. 

But  before  this  peace  was  signed  events  had  occurred  very 


CH.  in.  BATTLE  OF  FONTENOY.  455 

disastrous  to  the  interests  both  of  Austria  and  of  England.  In 
Italy  Genoa  now  openly  declared  herself  on  the  side  of  the 
French,  and  the  accession  of  10,000  Genoese  soldiers,  com- 
bined with  the  great  military  talents  of  General  Gages,  who 
commanded  the  Spaniards,  determined  for  the  present  the  for- 
tunes of  the  war.  The  French,  Spaniards,  and  Neapolitans 
were  everywhere  triumphant.  Tortona,  Placentia,  Parma, 
Pavia,  Cazale,  and  Asti  were  taken,  Don  Philip  entered  Milan  in 
triumph  and  blockaded  the  citadel,  and  the  King  of  Sardinia 
was  driven  to  take  refuge  under  the  walls  of  his  capital. 

In  Flanders  Marshal  Saxe,  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  80,000 
men  was  equally  successful.  The  Austrians,  in  their  zeal  for  the 
conquest  of  Silesia,  spared  little  more  than  8,000  men  for  the 
defence  of  this  province,  and  the  task  of  opposing  the  French 
rested  chiefly  upon  the  English  and  the  Dutch.  In  April  Marshal 
Saxe  invested  Tournay,  and  on  May  11  he  fought  a  great  battle 
with  the  allies  at  Fontenoy.  The  Dutch  gave  way  at  an  early 
period  of  the  struggle,  but  tlie  English  and  Hanoverians  remained 
firm,  and,  gradually  forming  into  a  solid  column  of  about  1 6,000 
men,  they  advanced,  through  a  narrow  passage  that  was  left  be- 
tween the  fortified  village  of  Fontenoy  and  the  neighbouring 
woods,  full  against  the  centre  of  the  French.  Eegiment  after  regi- 
ment assailed  them  in  vain.  Their  sustained  and  deadly  fire,  their 
steady  intrepidity  and  the  massive  power  of  their  charge  carried 
all  before  it,  and  the  day  was  almost  lost  to  the  French,  when  Mar- 
shal Saxe  resolved  to  make  one  last  and  almost  despairing  efifort. 
Four  cannon  were  brought  to  play  upon  the  English,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  order  to  advance  was  given  to  the  house- 
hold troops  of  the  French  King,  who  had  hitherto  been  kept  in 
reserve,  and  to  the  Irish  brigade,  consisting  of  several  regiments 
of  Irish  Catholics  who  had  been  driven  from  their  country  by 
the  events  of  the  Eevolution  and  by  the  Penal  Code,  and  who 
were  burning  to  avenge  themselves  on  their  oppressors.  Their 
fiery  charge  was  successful.  The  British  column  was  arrested, 
shattered,  and  dissolved,  and  a  great  French  victory  was  the 
result.     In  a  few  days  Tournay  surrendered,  and  its  fall  was  fol- 


456  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  en.  ni. 

lowed  by  that   of  Ghent,   Bruges,  Oudenarde,  Dendermonde, 
Ostend,  Nieuport,  and  Ath. 

An  immediate  consequence  of  the  defeat  of  Fontenoy  was 
the  Jacobite  rebellion  in  Scotland.  On  July  25,  the  young 
Pretender  landed,  without  the  support  or  knowledge  of  the 
French,  relvino"  only  on  the  popularity  of  his  manners  and  of 
his  name,  and  on  the  assistance  of  a  few  Highland  chiefs,  to 
recover  the  throne  of  his  ancestors.  A  wilder  or  more  hopeless 
enterprise  never  convulsed  a  great  empire.  The  Highlands, 
where  alone  he  could  count  upon  warm  support,  contained  at 
this  time  about  one-twelfth  of  the  population  of  Scotland.' 
Even  there  many  powerful  chiefs  were  bound  to  the  reigning 
dynasty  by  the  strongest  ties  of  interest.  The  clans,  though 
they  were  ever  ready  to  take  up  arms,  and  would  follow  their 
chiefs  in  any  cause,  were  utterly  destitute  of  the  discipline  and 
subordination  of  a  regular  army.  Their  great  object  was 
plunder,  and  after  their  first  victory  more  than  half  the  army 
disbanded  to  secure  the  spoil.  In  the  Lowlands  the  balance  of 
opinion  was  probably  hostile  to  Jacobitism.  The  Episcopalians, 
it  is  true,  were  generally  disaffected,  the  Union  had  left  much 
discontent  behind  it,  and  the  Scotch  origin  of  the  Stuarts  was 
not  forgotten,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  Highlanders  were 
detested  as  a  race  of  marauders,  the  commercial  and  industrial 
classes  dreaded  change,  and  the  gi-eat  city  of  Glasgow  was 
decidedly  Hanoverian.  In  England,  as  the  event  showed,  not  a 
single  real  step  had  been  taken  to  prepare  an  insurrection. 
The  King  was  in  Hanover  when  the  movement  began,  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  English  army  was  endeavouring  to  protect 
the  Netherlands,  yet  nothing  but  the  grossest  incapacity  on  the 
part  of  the  military  authorities  at  home,  and  an  extraordinary 
want  of  public  spirit  in  the  nation,  could  have  enabled  the 
rebellion,  unaided  as  it  was  from  abroad,  to  acquire  the  dimen- 
sions which  it  did.  On  August  19  the  standard  of  the  Stuarts 
was  raised,  and  before  the  end  of  September  Prince  Charles 
was  installed  in  Holyrood  Palace,  the  army  of  Sir  John  Cope 

'  See  Chambers  Hist,  of  the  Relellion 


CH.  in.  JACOBITE  REBELLION   OF   1745.  457 

was  completely  defeated  in  the  battle  of  Preston  Pans,  and 
almost  the  whole  of  Scotland  acknowledged  the  Pretender.  At 
the  end  of  October  he  prepared,  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  less 
than  6,000  men,  to  invade  England.  He  crossed  the  frontier  on 
November  8,  took  Carlisle,  after  a  short  resistance  on  the  15th, 
marched  without  opposition  through  most  of  the  great  towns  of 
Lancashire,  penetrated  as  far  as  Derby,  and  had  produced  in 
London  a  disgraceful  panic  and  a  violent  run  upon  the  Bank  of 
England,'  when  the  chiefs  insisted,  in  defiance  of  his  wishes,  in 
commencing  a  retreat.  Three  considerable  armies  were  formed 
to  oppose  him.  One  of  these,  commanded  by  Marshal  Wade, 
was  assembled  in  Yorkshire,  and  might  easily,  with  common 
skill,  have  cut  off  his  retreat.  Another,  under  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  was  prepared  to  intercept  him  if  he  marched  upon 
Wales,  while  a  thii'd  was  assembled  on  Finchley  Common  for  the 
protection  of  London.  Dutch  soldiers  were  brought  over  to 
support  the  Government.^  There  was  no  prospect  of  serious 
assistance  from  France,  and  in  England,  if  the  Pretender  met 
with  little  active  opposition  among  the  people,  he  met  with 
still  less  support.  In  Preston,  where  the  Catholics  were 
very  numerous,  there  was  some  cheering.  In  Manchester 
several  of  the  clergy,  and  a  great  part  of  the  populace  received 
him  with  enthusiasm,  and  a  regiment  of  about  500  men  was 
enlisted  for  his  service,  the  first  person  enrolled  being  Captain 
James  Dawson,  whose  mournful  fate  has  been  celebrated  in  the 
most  touching  ballad  of  Shenstone.  But  the  recruits  were 
scarcely  equal  to  half  the  number  of  the  Highlanders  who  had 
deserted  in  the  march  from  Edinburgh  to  Carlisle.  Liverpool 
was  strongly  Hanoverian,  and  its  citizens  subscribed  6,000^.  for 
equipping  a  regiment  in  the  service  of  the  Government.  In 
general,  howe^■er,  the  prevailing  disposition  of  the  people  was 
fear  or  sullen  apathy,  and  few  were  disposed  to  risk  anytliing  on 
either  side.     The  retreat  began  on  December  G.     It  was  skil- 

'  Seo   the  graphic  description  of  ^  They  were  afterwards  replaced  by 

this  panic  in  Fielding's  TvMe  Paf/-j>^.  Hessians.     See    Stanhope's  Higt.    of 

It  was  reported  that  the  Bank   saved  England,  iii.  299. 
itself  by  paying  in  sixpences. 


458  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  m. 

fully  conducted,  and  in  several  skirmishes  the  Scotch  were 
victorious,  but  their  cause  was  manifestly  lost.  They  regained 
their  country,  were  joined  by  a  few  French  and  a  few  Irish  in  the 
French  service,  and  succeeded  on  January  17  in  defeating  a  con- 
siderable body  of  English  at  Falkirk.  This  was  their  last  gleam 
of  success.  Divisions  and  desertion  speedily  thinned  their  ranks. 
Enemies  overwhelming  from  their  numbers  and  their  discipline 
were  pressing  upon  them,  and  on  April  16,  1746,  the  battle  of 
Culloden  for  ever  crushed  the  prospects  of  the  Stuarts.  The 
Hanoverian  army,  and  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  who  com- 
manded it,  displayed  in  their  triumph  a  barbarity  which 
recalled  the  memory  of  Sedgemoor  and  of  the  Bloody  Assize, 
while  the  courage,  the  loyalty,  and  the  touching  fidelity  of  tlie 
Highlanders  to  their  fallen  chief  cast  a  halo  of  romantic  inte- 
rest around  his  cause. 

The  extraordinary  incapacity  of  English  commanders,  both 
by  land  and  sea,  is  one  of  the  most  striking  facts  in  the  war  we 
are  considering.  Frederick  in  Prussia,  Prince  Charles  of  Lor- 
raiue,  General  Khevenhuller,  and  Marshal  Traun  in  Austria, 
General  Gages  in  the  service  of  Spain,  and  Marshal  Saxe  in  the 
service  of  France,  had  all  exhibited  conspicuous  talent,  and 
both  Noailles  and  Belleisle,  though  inferior  generals,  associated 
their  names  with  brilliant  military  episodes ;  but  in  the  English 
service  mismanagement  and  languor  were  general.  The  battle 
of  Dettingen  was  truly  described  as  a  happy  escape  rather  than 
a  great  victory  ;  the  army  in  Planders  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  exhibited  any  military  quality  except  courage,  and  the 
British  navy,  though  it  gained  some  successes,  added  little  to  its 
reputation.  The  one  brilliant  exception  was  the  expedition  of 
Anson  round  Cape  Horn,  for  the  purpose  of  plundering  the 
Spanish  merchandise  and  settlements  in  the  Pacific.  It  lasted 
for  nearly  four  years,  and  though  it  had  little  efifect  except  that 
of  inflicting  a  great  amount  of  private  misery,  it  was  conducted 
with  a  skill  and  a  courage  equal  to  the  most  splendid  achieve- 
ments of  Hawkins  or  of  Blake.  The  overwhelming  superiority 
of  England  upon  the  sea  began,  however,  gradually  to  influence 


cu  m.  EVENTS  IN   ITALY.  459 

the  war.  The  island  of  Cape  Breton,  which  commanded  the 
mouth  of  Gulf  St.  Lawrence,  and  protected  the  Newfoundland 
fisheries,  was  captured  in  the  June  of  1745.  In  1747  a  French 
squadron  was  destroyed  by  a  very  superior  English  fleet  off  Cape 
Finisterre.  Another  was  defeated  near  Belleisle,  and  in  the  same 
year  as  many  as  644  prizes  were  taken.'  The  war  on  the  part  of 
the  English,  however,  was  most  efficiently  conducted  by  means  of 
subsidies,  which  were  enormously  multiplied.  The  direct  pay- 
ment of  the  Hanoverian  troops,  against  which  so  fierce  a  clamour 
had  been  raised,  was,  indeed,  for  a  time  suspended,  but  the  Queen 
of  Hungary  was  induced  to  take  those  troops  into  her  pay.  In 
order  that  she  should  do  so  her  subsidy  was  increased,  and  next 
year  the  Government,  without  producing  any  considerable  dis- 
turbance, reverted  quietly  to  the  former  policy.  The  war, 
however,  was  now  evidently  dra^virg  to  a  close,  and  the  treaties 
of  1745  had  greatly  restricted  its  theatre.  Austria,  freed  from 
apprehension  on  the  side  of  Prussia  and  Bavaria,  was  enabled  in 
1746  to  send  30,000  additional  soldiers  into  Italy,  where  she 
speedily  recovered  almost  everything  she  had  lost  in  the  pre- 
ceding year,  and  defeated  the  united  French  and  Spaniards  in 
the  battle  of  Placentia.  The  death  of  Philip  Y.,  which  took  place 
in  July,  made  the  Spaniards  desirous  of  peace.  The  command  of 
their  army  was  taken  from  General  Gages,  and  their  troops  were 
soon  after  ordered  to  evacuate  Italy.  Finale  was  occupied  by  the 
Sardinians.  Genoa  itself  was  captured  by  the  Austrians,  but 
rescued  by  a  sudden  iusm-rection  of  the  populace.  The  project 
of  the  invasion  of  Naples  was  abandoned,  in  consequence  of  the 
opposition  of  the  King  of  Sardinia,  who  had  grown  jealous  of 
Austria,  and  feared  to  see  her  omnipotent  in  Italy.  Provence, 
however,  was  invaded  and  devastated  in  the  November  of  1746, 
and  Antibes  besieged  ;  but  soon  after  the  revolt  of  Genoa  the 
Austrians  were  recalled.  A  second  siege  of  Genoa  was  raised 
by  a  French  army,  under  Belleisle,  which  burst  through  Nice, 
took  town  after  town  in  that  province,  and  compelled  the 
Austrians  and  Sardinians  to  retire.     An  attempt  was  then  made 

'  Smollett,  Mist,  of  JS/igland,  cix,  ix. 


460  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  in. 

to  capture  Turin  by  a  French  corps,  commanded  by  the  brother 
of  Belleisle,  which  endeavoured  to  force  its  way  through  the 
valley  of  Susa,  but  it  was  defeated  with  great  loss  at  an 
entrenchment  called  the  Assietta,  the  commander  was  killed, 
and  Marshal  Belleisle,  who  had  counselled  the  expedition,  and 
who  intended  to  co-operate  with  it,  fell  back  upon  Nice. 

While  the  fortune  of  the  war  was  thus  rapidly  fluctuating  in 
Italy,  in  the  Netherlands  it  was  uniformly  in  favour  of  the  French. 
The  Scotch  rebellion,  which  compelled  England  for  a  time  to 
withdraw  her  troops,  confirmed  the  military  ascendency  which 
Marshal  Saxe  had  abeady  acquired.  In  1746  Brussels  with 
its  whole  garrison  was  captured,  and  soon  after  Mechlin, 
Louvain,  Antwerp,  Mons,  Charleroi,  and  Namur  succumbed. 
This  last  town,  on  whose  fortifications  the  rival  genius  of 
Cohorn  and  Vauban  had  been  in  turn  employed,  now  yielded 
after  a  siege  of  six  days.  The  superiority  of  the  French  in 
numbers  and  especially  in  artillery,  the  genius  of  Marshal  Saxe 
and  the  paralysing  effect  of  a  great  domestic  sorrow  upon 
Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine,  who  commanded  the  Austrians, 
made  the  campaign  an  uninterrupted  triumph  for  the  French, 
who,  soon  after  the  arrival  of  a  British  force,  defeated  the 
allies  in  the  battle  of  Eoucoux,  and  became  masters  of  all  the 
Austrian  Netherlands,  except  Limburg  and  Luxemburg.  Next 
year  they  invaded  the  Dutch  Eepublic.  Zealand  was  over- 
run by  troops,  5,000  prisoners  were  taken  in  less  than  a  month, 
and  several  towns  and  fortresses  were  occupied.  The  Dutch, 
who  found  their  republican  institutions  much  more  adapted  for 
securing  their  liberty  in  time  of  peace  than  for  giving  energy 
and  concentration  to  their  forces  in  time  of  war,  adopted  a 
policy  which  they  had  before  pursued.  During  their  long  con- 
flicts with  the  Spaniards  they  had  confided  the  executive  power 
to  the  House  of  Orange,  but  soon  after  the  Peace  of  Westphalia 
had  given  Holland  a  recognised  place  among  European  States, 
the  hereditary  Stadtholdership  was  abolished  and  purely  repub- 
lican institutions  were  created.  When  the  country,  in  1672, 
was  reduced  to  the  verge  of  ruin  by  the  invasion  of  Lewis  XIV, 


CH.  III.  SUDDEN   RESIGNATION   OF  THE  MINISTRY.  461 

it  reverted  to  the  former  system  and  retained  it  for  thirty  years. 
It  now  again  recurred  to  it,  and  a  popular  insurrection  made 
the  House  of  Orange  hereditary  rulers.  The  war,  however,  con- 
tinued to  be  disastrous.  The  allies  were  defeated  in  a  great 
battle  at  Lauffeld,  near  Maestricht,  on  July  2  ;  Sir  John  Ligo- 
nier,  who  commanded  the  English  cavalry,  and  wlio  displayed 
extraordinary  courage  in  the  struggle,  was  taken  prisoner,  and 
the  campaign  ended  with  the  surprise  and  capture  of  the  almost 
impregnable  fortress  of  Bergen-op-Zoom,  by  Count  Lowendahl. 
It  is  a  curious  feature  of  this  campaign  that  Ligonier,  who  dis- 
tinguished himself  most  highly  in  the  English  ranks,  was  a 
French  refugee,  while  of  the  French  commanders  Marshal  Saxe 
was  by  birth  a  German,  and  Lowendahl  a  Dane. 

In  the  meantime  the  Pelham  Government,  though  unsuc- 
cessful abroad,  had  acquired  a  complete  ascendency  at  home. 
The  martial  enthusiasm  of  the  country  had  gone  down,  and 
public  opinion  being  gratified  by  the  successive  deposition  of 
Walpole  and  of  Carteret,  and  being  no  longer  stimulated  by  a 
powerful  Opposition,  acquiesced  languidly  in  the  course  of  events. 
The  King  for  a  time  chafed  bitterly  against  the  yoke.  He  had 
been  thwarted  in  his  favourite  German  policy,  deprived  of  the 
minister  who  was  beyond  comparison  the  most  pleasing  to  him, 
and  compelled  to  accept  others  in  whom  he  had  no  confidence. 
He  despised  and  disliked  Newcastle.  He  hated  Chesterfield, 
whom  he  was  compelled  to  admit  to  office,  and  he  was  especially 
indignant  with  Pitt,  who  had  described  Hanover  as  '  a  beggarly 
Electorate'  and  accused  its  soldiers  of  cowardice,  and  whose  claims 
to  office  Pelham  was  continually  urging.  At  length,  in  February 
1745-46,  while  the  rebellion  was  still  raging,  the  perplexed 
monarch  tried  to  extricate  himself  from  his  embarrassments 
by  holding  private  communications  with  Bath  and  Granville. 
The  ministers  were  apprised  of  it  and  at  once  resigned.  The 
impotence  of  their  rivals  was  speedily  shown,  and  in  forty-eight 
hours  they  were  obliged  to  acknowledge  themselves  incapable 
of  forming  a  Government.  The  Pelhams  retiurned  to  power,  but 
their  position  was  immeasurably  strengthened.    The  few  remain- 


462  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

iug  adherents  of  Bath  were  driven  from  office.  The  King 
acknowledged  with  great  irritation  that  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  resist.  He  refused,  indeed,  to  make  Pitt  Secretary  of 
War  but  sanctioned  his  appointment  to  the  lucrative  office  of 
Joint  Vice-Treasurer  of  Ireland,  and  soon  after  to  the  still  more 
important  position  of  Paymaster  of  the  Forces. 

The  great  work  of  the  Government  was  the  pacification  of 
Europe  by  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  Another  campaign 
had  actually  begun  when  the  preliminaries  were  signed.  Eussia 
had  at  last  been  brought  into  the  war,  and  30,000  Eussian 
soldiers,  subsidised  by  the  maritime  Powers,  were  on  the  march 
to  rescue  the  Netherlands.  It  was  not  impossible  that  this 
powerful  reinforcement  might  have  given  a  new  course  to  the 
war.  In  Italy  the  balance  of  success  was  on  the  whole  in 
favour  of  the  Austrian s.  The  commerce  of  France  had  been 
almost  annihilated  by  the  English ;  her  resources  were  nearly 
exhausted  by  the  extraordinary  exertions  she  had  made,  and  the 
returning  prosperity  produced  by  the  long  pacific  government 
of  Fleury  had  been  completely  overcast.  On  the  other  hand, 
Nice  and  Savoy  were  still  occupied  by  the  French  and  Spaniards. 
The  French  were  almost  absolute  masters  of  the  Austrian 
Netherlands ;  the  capture  of  Bergen-op-Zoom  and  the  sub- 
sequent investment  of  Maestricht  had  rendered  the  con- 
dition of  the  Dutch  Eepublic  almost  desperate,  and  it  would 
probably  have  been  crushed  before  any  succour  could  arrive. 
Maria  Theresa,  it  is  true,  ardently  desired  the  continuance  of 
the  war,  hoping  to  obtain  in  Italy  some  compensation  for  the  loss 
of  Silesia,  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  was  inclined,  in  opposition 
to  his  brother,  to  support  her ;  but  she  waged  war  chiefly  by  the 
assistance  of  the  subsidies  of  England,  and  her  ambition  was 
clearly  contrary  to  the  general  interests  of  Europe.  Like  many 
absolute  sovereigns  she  appears  to  have  been  completely  indif- 
ferent to  the  misery  and  desolation  she  caused,  provided  only 
she  could  leave  her  empire  as  extended  as  she  had  received  it. 
She  was  resolved  also  to  throw  the  defence  of  the  Austrian 
Netherlands  almost  exclusively  on  the  maritime  Powers,  employ- 


CH.  ni.  THE  FRENCH  IN   INDIA.  463 

ing  the  subsidies,  which  she  received  on  the  express  condition  of 
keeping  a  large  army  in  those  provinces,  mainly  in  a  war  of 
aggression  in  Italy ;  and  she  was  bitterly  aggrieved  because  the 
English,  under  these  circumstances,  diminished  her  remittances. 
With  the  exception  of  the  King  of  Sardinia,  however,  who  saw 
prospects  of  pushing  his  fortunes  in  Italy,  and  who  was  deter- 
mined, if  possible,  to  avoid  restoring  the  Duchy  of  Finale,  she 
found  little  support  in  her  hostility  to  peace.  Spain  was  now 
governed  by  a  perfectly  unambitious  sovereign,  who  wished  for 
nothing  but  repose.  Holland  was  reduced  to  such  a  condition  that 
peace  was  her  first  necessity.  England  was  ruled  by  an  eminently 
pacific  minister  ;  and  there  was  hardly  any  Opposition  to  impede 
his  policy.  The  enormous  subsidies  which  England  had  been 
for  years  scattering  through  Europe  were  rapidly  adding  to  her 
debt  and  impairing  her  prosperity,  and  it  was  not  clear  what 
object  she  had  to  gain.  The  quarter  in  which  the  French  arms 
were  most  successful  was  precisely  that  most  dangerous  to  Eng- 
land ;  and  except  the  capture  of  Cape  Breton,  and  of  a  number 
of  prizes,  she  had  obtained  little  or  nothing  as  a  compensation 
for  her  sacrifices.  Even  in  India,  where  the  small  settlements 
of  France  appeared  almost  at  the  mercy  of  England,  she  had 
encountered  reverses.  Two  Frenchmen  of  great  abilities  and 
enterprise,  but  separated  from  each  other  by  a  bitter  jealousy, 
then  presided  over  French  interests  in  India.  Dupleix,  after  a 
brilliant  industrial  career  upon  the  Ganges,  had  been  made 
Governor  of  the  French  settlement  of  Pondicherry,  while  La 
Bourdonnais,  one  of  the  bravest  and  most  skilful  seamen  France 
has  ever  produced,  directed  affairs  in  the  islands  of  Bourbon  and 
Mauritius.  La  Bourdonnais  succeeded,  in  the  course  of  1 746,  in 
repelling  an  English  squadron  under  Admiral  Barnet,  andin  be- 
sieging and  taking  ]\Iadras.  As  express  orders  from  the  ministry 
at  home  prohibited  him  from  occupying  permanently  any  con- 
quests that  might  be  made  in  India,  a  capitulation  was  signed  by 
which  the  town  was  to  be  restored  on  the  payment  of  a  specified 
ransom.  It  passed,  however,  under  tlie  dominion  of  Dupleix,  who 
shamefully  broke  the  capitulation  and  subjected  the  English  to 


464  ENGLAND   IN   THE  El^iHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

scandalous  outrages,  while  La  Bourdonnais  returned  to  France 
and  was  soon  after,  on  false  charges,  flung  into  the  Bastille,  where 
he  remained  for  nearly  three  years.  In  1748  the  English  made 
a  formidable  attempt  to  retaliate  upon  the  French,  and  a  large 
force  of  English  and  Sepoy  troops,  under  the  command  of 
Admiral  Boscawen  and  of  Major  Lawrence,  besieged  Pondicherry. 
It  was  defended,  however,  by  Dupleix  with  great  energy  and 
genius.  The  rainy  season  came  on,  sickness  decimated  the 
besiegers,  and  the  enterprise  was  at  last  abandoned. 

It  was  plain  that  the  time  for  peace  had  arrived.  France 
had  already  made  overtures,  and  she  showed  much  moderation, 
and  at  this  period  much  disinterestedness  in  her  demands,  and 
the  influence  of  England  and  Holland  at  length  forced  the  peace 
upon  Austria  and  Sardinia,  though  both  were  bitterly  aggrieved 
by  its  conditions.  France  agreed  to  restore  every  conquest 
she  had  made  during  the  war,  to  abandon  the  cause  of  the 
Stuarts,  and  expel  the  Pretender  from  her  soil ;  to  demolish,  in 
accordance  with  earlier  treaties,  the  fortifications  of  Dunkirk  on 
the  side  of  the  sea,  while  retaining  those  on  the  side  of  the  land, 
and  to  retire  from  the  contest  without  acquiring  any  fresh  terri- 
tory or  any  pecuniary  compensation.  England  in  like  manner 
restored  the  few  conquests  she  had  made,  and  submitted  to  the 
somewhat  humiliating  condition  of  sending  hostages  to  Paris  as 
a  security  for  the  restoration  of  Cape  Breton.  The  right  of 
search,  in  opposition  to  which  she  had  originally  drawn  the 
sword  against  Spain,  and  the  debt  of  95,000^,  which  the 
Convention  of  1739  acknowledged  to  be  owing  to  her  by 
Spain,  were  not  even  mentioned  in  the  peace.  The  disputed 
boundary  between  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia,  which  had  been 
a  source  of  constant  difficulty  with  France,  was  left  altogether 
undefined.  The  Assiento  treaty  for  trade  with  the  Spanish 
colonies  was  confirmed  for  the  four  years  it  had  still  to 
run,  but  no  real  compensation  was  obtained  for  a  war  expendi- 
ture which  is  said  to  have  exceeded  sixty-foiu:  millions,'  and 
which  had  raised  the  funded  and  unfunded  debt  to  more 
'  Chalmers'  Estimate,  p.  105. 


I 


CH.  II.  PEACE   OF   AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.  465 

than  seventy-eight  millions.'  Of  the  other  Powers,  Holland. 
Genoa,  and  the  little  State  of  Modena  retained  their  territory 
as  before  the  war,  and  Genoa  remained  mistress  of  the  Duchy  of 
Finale,  which  had  been  ceded  to  the  King  of  Sardinia  by  the 
Treaty  of  Worms,  and  which  it  had  been  a  main  object  of  his 
later  policy  to  secure.  Austria  obtained  a  recognition  of  the 
election  of  the  Emperor,  a  general  guarantee  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction,  and  the  restoration  of  everything  she  had  lost  in  the 
Netherlands,  but  she  gained  no  additional  territory.  She  was 
compelled  to  confirm  the  cession  of  Silesia  and  Glatz  to  Prussia, 
to  abandon  her  Italian  conquests,  and  even  to  cede  a  consider- 
able part  of  her  former  Italian  dominions.  To  the  bitter  indig- 
nation of  Maria  Theresa,  the  Duchies  of  Parma,  Placentia,  and 
Guastalla  passed  to  Don  Philip  of  Spain,  to  revert,  however,  to 
their  former  possessors  if  Don  Philip  mounted  the  Spanish 
throne,  or  died  without  male  issue.  The  King  of  Sardinia  also 
obtained  from  Austria  the  territorial  cessions  enumerated  in  the 
Treaty  of  Worms,  witli  the  important  exceptions  of  Placentia, 
which  passed  to  Don  Philip,  and  of  Finale,  which  remained 
with  the  Genoese.  For  the  loss  of  these  he  obtained  no  com- 
pensation. Frederick  obtained  a  general  guarantee  for  the 
possession  of  his  newly-acquired  territory,  and  a  long  list  of  old 
treaties  was  formally  confirmed.'* 

Thus  small  were  the  changes  effected  in  Europe  by  so  much 
bloodshed  and  treachery,  by  nearly  nine  years  of  wasteful  and 
desolating  war.  The  design  of  the  dismemberment  of  Austria 
had  failed,  but  no  vexed  question  had  been  set  at  rest.  Inter- 
national antipathies  and  jealousies  had  been  immeasurably  in- 
creased, and  the  fearful  sufferings  and  injuries  that  had  been 
inflicted  on  the  most  civilised  nations  had  not  even  purchased 
the  blessing  of  an  assured  peace.  Of  all  the  ambitious  projects 
that  had  been  conceived  during  the  war,  that  of  Frederick 
alone  was  substantially  realised,  and  France,  while  endeavouring 

'  Coxe's  PeUiam,  u.  77.  de  Valori, VohaWe,  Louin XV., andthe 

2  See     on     tliis    war    Freder  histories  of  Smollett,  Coxe,  Carlyle, 

Mcmoireg  de  men  TcinjJii,  the  Mi  mo  Ranke,  Martin,  and  Lord  Stanhope. 

^OL.  1.  31 


4G6  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  m. 

to  weaken  one  rival,  had  contributed  largely  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion of  the  greatness  of  another. 

The  definitive  peace  between  England  and  Holland,  and 
France  was  signed  on  October  18,  1748,  and  the  other  Powers 
acceded  to  it  before  the  close  of  the  year.  From  this  time  till 
the  death  of  Pelham  in  March  1754,  political  rivalry  in  Eng- 
land almost  ceased.  The  Tories  were  gratified  by  a  few  places, 
and  almost  every  politician  of  talent  and  influence  was  con- 
nected with  the  Grovernment.  The  Prince  of  "Wales,  who  kept 
up  some  faint  semblance  of  opposition,  died  in  March  1750. 
Even  Lord  Granville,  sated  with  ambition  and  broken  by  ex- 
cessive drinking,  joined  the  ministry  in  1751,  accepting  the 
dignified  but  uninfluential  post  of  President  of  the  Council. 
During  this  period  the  leading  ideas  of  the  policy  of  Walpole 
were  steadily  pursued.  Europe  being  at  peace,  and  the  dynasty 
firmly  established  by  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  the  army 
and  navy  were  both  rigorously  reduced ;  20,000  soldiers  and 
34,000  sailors  and  marines  were  discharged,  and  some  serious 
distress  having  in  consequence  arisen,  it  was  met  by  the  bold 
and  novel  expedient  of  a  system  of  emigration,  organised  and 
directed  by  the  Grovernment.  As  early  as  1735  Captain  Coram, 
in  a  memorial  to  the  Privy  Council,  had  called  attention  to  the 
deserted  and  unprotected  state  of  Nova  Scotia,  to  the  ease  with 
which  the  French  carried  their  encroachments  into  that  pro- 
vince, and  to  the  insufficiency  of  the  small  British  garrison 
which  was  collected  at  Annapolis  for  its  protection.  Nova 
Scotia  was  justly  regarded  as  the  key  to  North  America, 
equally  important  in  time  of  war  for  attacking  Canada  and 
for  defending  New  England.  The  adjacent  sea  teemed  with 
fish,  and  its  magnificent  forests  supplied  admirable  timber 
for  the  royal  navy.  It  was  accordingly  determined  to  strengthen 
the  colony  by  encouraging  the  officers  and  men  lately  dismissed 
from  the  land  and  sea  service,  to  settle  there  with  or  without 
their  families.  To  every  private  was  offered  a  free  passage,  a 
free  maintenance  for  twelve  months,  the  fee  simple  of  fifty 
acres  of  land,  an  additional  grant  of  ten  acres  for  every  member 


en.  ni.  FOUNDATION   OF  HALIFAX.  467 

of  his  family,  and  an  immunity  from  taxation  for  ten  years. 
The  officers  received  still  larger  grants,  varying  according  to 
their  rank.  The  scheme  was  eminently  successful.  About 
4,000  men,  many  of  them  with  their  families,  embraced  the 
Government  offers.  The  expedition  sailed  in  May  under  the 
command  of  Colonel  Cornwallis,  and  with  the  protection  of  two 
regiments.  It  was  joined  on  its  arrival  by  an  additional  force, 
which  had  lately  been  withdrawn  from  Cape  Breton,  and  soon 
after  the  new  colonists  founded  the  important  town  of  Halifax, 
which  derived  its  name  from  Lord  Halifax,  who,  as  President  of 
the  Board  of  Trade,  was  a  principal  person  in  organising  the  expe- 
dition, and  which  soon  became  the  capital  of  a  flourishing  colony.' 
Not  less  successful  was  the  financial  policy  of  Pelham. 
The  measures  which  were  carried  in  1717  and  1727  for  re- 
ducing the  interest  of  the  debt  have  been  already  recounted, 
and  another  effort  in  the  same  direction  had  been  made  by 
Sir  John  Barnard  in  1737.  He  had  proposed  to  reduce  gradu- 
ally that  portion  of  the  debt  which  bore  four  per  cent,  interest 
to  three  per  cent.,  enabling  the  Government  to  borrow  money 
at  the  lower  rate  in  order  to  pay  oflf  those  creditors,  who  refused 
to  accept  the  reduction.  As  the  three  per  cents,  were  at  this 
time  at  a  premium,  and  as  it  was  part  of  the  scheme  of  Sir 
John  Barnard  that  the  contributors  to  the  new  loan  should  be 
guaranteed  from  payment  of  any  part  of  the  principal  for  foiur- 
teeu  years,  there  is  not  much  doubt  that  the  plan  in  its  essential 
features  could  have  been  carried  out,  nor  yet  that  it  would 
have  been  very  beneficial  to  the  nation.  It  was,  however,  ex- 
ceedingly unpopular.  The  great  companies  who  contributed  so 
powerfully  to  support  the  ministry  of  Walpole  were  opposed  to 
it.  A  deep  impression  was  made  throughout  the  country  by  a 
statement  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  4  per  cent,  funds 
were  in  the  possession,  of  widows  and  orphans  and  trustees,  who 
would  suffer  greatly  by  the  reduction.  The  growing  complica- 
tions with  Spain  made  it  probable  that  the  Government  would 
soon  be  compelled  to  have  recourse  to  new  loans,  and  especially 

'  Smollett's  Hist,  of  England.     Coxe's  Life  of  Pelham. 


468  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  iu. 

important  that  it  should  take  no  step  that  could  alienate  the 
moneyed  classes,  or  injure,  however  unjustly,  the  credit  of  the 
country.  Besides  this,  the  Grovernment  was  now  too  weak  to 
bear  the  strain  of  additional  unpopularity,  and  Sir  John  Bar- 
nard who  originated  the  measure,  was  a  prominent  member  of 
the  Opposition  Under  these  circumstances  Walpole,  after  some 
hesitation,  placed  himself  in  opposition  to  the  Bill.  He  showed 
even  more  than  his  usual  financial  knowledge  in  pointing  out 
the  weak  points  in  its  details,  and  he  succeeded  without  diffi- 
culty in  defeating  it.^  The  question  of  how  far  he  was  justified 
in  this  course  by  the  special  political  circumstances  of  the  time 
is  one  which  can  hardly  be  answered  without  a  more  minute 
knowledge  of  the  dispositions  of  Members  of  Parliament  and  of 
the  currents  of  feeling  in  the  country  than  it  is  now  possible  to 
attain.  The  strong  ministry  of  the  Pelhams,  however,  was  able 
to  carry  out  a  somewhat  similar  measure,  in  spite  of  the  strenuous 
opposition  both  of  the  Bank  and  of  the  East  India  Company,  in 
1749.  By  far  the  larger  part  of  the  national  debt  was  at  4  per 
cent.,  a  part  was  at  3^  per  cent.,  and  another  part  at  3  per 
cent.  As  the  3  per  cents,  were  selling  at  par,  and  the  3^-  per 
cents  above  par,^  the  time  had  evidently  come  when  a  reduction 
was  feasible.  Availing  himself  largely  of  the  assistance,  without 
absolutely  adopting  the  plan,  of  Sir  J.  Barnard,  Pelham  intro- 
duced and  carried  a  scheme  by  which  such  holders  of  4  per 
cent,  stock  as  consented  by  February  28,  1749-50,  to  accept  the 
arrangement  were  to  receive  3^  per  cent,  interest  from  De- 
cember 1750  to  December  1757,  with  a  security  that  no  part  of 
their  stock  should  be  redeemed  before  the  latter  date  except  what 
was  due  to  the  East  India  Company.  After  December  1757  the 
interest  was  to  sink  to  3  per  cent,  till  reduced  by  the  Govern- 

'  Com:pave  Coxe's  lAfe  of  Wal2}ole,  was  said  at  this  time  to  have  pur- 

ch.    xlvii. ;    Sinclair's    Hist,    of   the  chased  3  per  cents,  at  109^.  This,  how- 

Hevenue,  i.  500-502  ;  and  Lord  Her-  ever,  must  have  been  quite  an  isolated 

vey's    3Ienwirs,    ii.    325-332.    It    is  transaction,  and  the   ordinary  price 

remarkable  that  this  was  almost  the  appears  to  have  been  from  par  to  101. 

only  question  on  which  Henry  Pelham  Coxe's  Pelham,  ii.  77-85.     Sinclair's 

ever  voted  against  Walpole.  Hist,  of  the  Revernie,  i.  50i-507. 

^  Coxa  states  that  an  individual 


CH.  Ml.  FINANCIAL  LEGISLATION.  469 

ment,  while  those  who  refused  the  arrangement  were  to  be  paid 
off  by  a  loan  raised  at  3  per  cent.  The  offer  does  not  appear 
very  tenipting,  but  the  normal  rate  of  interest  was  then  so  low, 
commercial  investments  were  so  few,  and  the  attraction  of  the 
Government  security  was  so  great,  that  the  majority  of  holders 
accepted  it,  and  when  February  arrived  only  eighteen  or 
nineteen  millions  had  not  been  brought  under  the  arrangement. 
The  success,  of  course,  increased  its  popularity,  and  Pelham 
accordingly  renewed  the  offer,  though  on  less  favourable 
conditions,  for  in  tlie  case  of  these  second  subscribers  the 
3L  per  cent,  interest  was  to  be  exchanged  for  3  per  cent, 
interest  in  December  175o.  The  result  of  this  prolongation 
was,  that  not  much  more  than  3  millions  remained  excluded, 
and  the  holders  of  this  stock  were  paid  off  in  1751.  For 
seven  years  after  1750  an  annual  saving  was  thus  made  of 
288,51 7^,  and  after  1757  it  amounted  in  the  whole  to  577,034^., 
which  was  to  be  applied  to  the  reduction  of  the  national  debt. 
The  success  of  this  measure  reflected  great  credit  on  the  Grovern- 
ment,  and  it  fiuruished  an  extremely  remarkable  proof  of  how 
prosperous  and  wealthy  the  country  remained  at  the  close  of  a 
long  and  exhausting  war.  In  1 752  Pelham  completed  his  finan- 
cial reforms  by  a  measure  simplifying  and  consolidating  the  dif- 
ferent branches  of  the  national  debt,  and  thus  removing  a  cause 
of  much  perplexity  and  some  expense  both  to  the  public  and  to 
individuals.^ 

It  was  in  this  department  of  legislation  that  the  Govera- 
ments  of  the  Walpole  and  Pelham  period  were  most  successful. 
In  very  few  periods  in  English  political  history  was  the  com- 
mercial element  more  conspicuous  in  administration.  The  pre- 
vailing spirit  of  the  debates  was  of  a  kind  we  should  rather  have 
expected  in  a  middle-class  Parliament  than  in  a  Parliament 
consisting  in  a  very  large  measm-e  of  the  nominees  of  great 
families.  A  competition  of  economy  reigned  iu  all  parties. 
The  questions  which  excited  most  interest  were  chiefly  financial 

'  Coxe's  Pelham.     Sinciairs  Hist,  of  the  lieve/nie.   ^lacpherson's  A nnah  of 
Commerce. 


470  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  hi. 

and  commercial  ones.  The  increase  of  the  national  debt,  the 
possibility  and  propriety  of  reducing  its  interest,  the  advantages 
of  a  sinking  fund,  the  policy  of  encouraging  trade  by  bounties 
and  protective  duties,  the  evils  of  excise,  the  reduction  of  the 
land-tax,  the  burden  of  Continental  subsidies,  were  among  the 
topics  which  produced  the  most  vehement  and  the  most  powerful 
debates.  Burke,  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  in  1752  describing 
the  House  of  Commons  during  the  Pelbam  administration, 
summed  up  the  requirements  of  a  Member  of  Parliament  in  one 
pregnant  sentence,  which  would  hardly  have  been  true  of  the  next 
generation  :  *  A  man,  after  all,  would  do  more  by  figures  of  arith- 
metic than  by  figures  of  rhetoric'  ^  Even  the  religious  questions 
which  produced  most  excitement  throughout  the  country,  the 
naturalisation  of  Jews  and  the  naturalisation  of  foreign  Pro- 
testants, were  argued  chiefly  in  Parliament  upon  commercial 
grounds.  The  question  in  home  politics,  however,  which 
excited  most  interest  in  the  nation  was  of  a  different  kind,  and 
it  was  one  which,  for  very  obvious  reasons.  Parliament  desired 
as  much  as  possible  to  avoid.  It  was  the  extreme  corruption 
of  Parliament  itself,  its  subserviency  to  the  influence  of  the 
Executive,  and  the  danger  of  its  becoming  in  time  rather  the 
oppressor  than  the  representative  of  the  people. 

This  danger  had  been  steadily  growing  since  the  Eevo- 
lution,  and  it  had  reached  such  a  point  that  there  were 
many  who  imagined  that  the  country  had  gained  little  by  ex- 
changing an  arbitrary  King  for  a  corrupt  and  often  a  t3n:^nnical 
Parliament.  The  extraordinary  inequalities  of  the  constituen- 
cies had  long  attracted  attention.  Cromwell  had  for  a  time 
remedied  the  evil  by  a  bold  measure,  sweeping  away  the  rotten 
boroughs,  granting  members  to  the  greatest  unrepresented 
towns,  strengthening  the  county  representation,  and  at  the 
same  time  summoning  Irish  and  Scotch  Members  to  the  Par- 
liament in  London ;  but  although  Clarendon  described  this  as 
*a  warrantable  alteration,  and  fit  to  be  made  in  better  times,' 
the  old  state  of  things  returned  with  the  Eestoration.  The 
•  Prior's  Life  of  Burke,  i.  38. 


CH.  III.  PARLIA5IENTARY  CORRUPTION.  471 

Revolution  had  been  mainly  a  conflict  between  the  Crown  and 
the  Parliament,  and  its  effect  had  been  greatly  to  increase  the 
authority  of  the  latter ;  but,  with  the  exception  of  the  Trien- 
nial Bill,  nothing  of  much  real  value  had  been  done  to  make  it 
a  more  faithful  representation  of  the  people.  Locke,  in  a 
memorable  passage,  complained  that  '  the  bare  name  of  a  town, 
of  which  there  remains  not  so  much  as  the  ruins,  where  scarce  so 
much  housing  as  a  sheepcot  or  more  inhabitants  than  a  shep- 
herd is  to  be  found,  sends  as  many  representatives  to  the  gi-and 
Assembly  of  lawmakers,  as  a  whole  county,  numerous  in  people 
and  powerful  in  riches';  but  he  could  discover  no  safe  remedy 
for  the  evil.'  Defoe'*  and  the  Speaker  Onslow^  both  desired 
an  excision  of  the  rotten  boroughs,  but  there  was  no  general 
movement  in  tliis  direction,  and  the  party  which  was  naturally 
most  inclined  to  change  shrank  from  a  reform  which  might 
have  been  fatal  to  the  Government  of  the  Revolution.  The 
Scotch  union  aggravated  the  evil  by  increasing  the  number  of 
sham  boroughs  and  of  subservient  Members.  If  the  anomalies 
were  not  quite  so  great  as  they  became  after  the  sudden  growth  of 
the  manufacturing  towns  in  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
Parliament  was  at  least  much  more  arbitrary  and  corrupt. 
Only  a  fraction  of  its  Members  were  elected  by  considerable 
and  independent  constituencies.  The  enormous  expense  of  the 
county  elections,  where  the  poll  might  be  kept  open  for  forty 
days,  kept  these  seats  almost  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
families,  while  many  small  boroughs  were  in  the  possession  of 
rich  noblemen,  or  were  notoriously  offered  for  sale.  The  Govern- 
ment, by  the  proprietary  rights  of  the  Crown  over  the  Cornish 
boroughs,  by  the  votes  of  its  numerous  excise  or  revenue  officers, 
by  direct  purchase,  or  by  bestowing  places  or  peerages  on  the 
proprietors,  exercised  an  absolute  authority  over  many  seats,^  and 

^  OnChilGorirnm^ntjhk.u^ch.xni.  Chesterfield    said:     'Many     of     our 

=  Tour  in  England.  boroughs    are     now    so     much     the 

'  Note  to  Burnet's  Onn  Times,  ii.  creatures  of    the    Crown  that   they 

458  are  generally  called  Court  boroughs, 

*  Thus    in     a    debate     in    1743,  and  very  properly  they  are  called  so. 


472  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

its  means  of  influencing  the  assembled  Parliament  were  so  great 
that  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how,  in  the  corrupt  moral  at- 
mosphere that  was  prevalent,  it  was  possible  to  resist  it.  The 
legal  and  ecclesiastical  patronage  of  the  Crown  was  mainly  em- 
ployed in  supporting  a  parliamentary  influence.  Great  sums  of 
secret  service  money  were  usually  expended  in  direct  bribery, 
and  places  and  pensions  were  multij)lied  to  such  an  extent  that 
it  is  on  record  that  out  of  550  Members  there  were  in  the  first 
Parliament  of  George  I.  no  less  than  271,  in  the  first  Parlia- 
ment of  George  II.  no  less  than  257,  holding  offices,  pen- 
sions, or  sinecures.^  And  the  body  which  was  thus  consti- 
tuted was  rapidly  becoming  supreme  in  the  State.  The  control 
of  the  purse  was  a  prerogative  which  naturally  would  make  it 
so  ;  but  during  the  triennial  period  the  frequency  of  elections 
made  the  Members  to  a  great  extent  subservient  to  the  people 
who  elected,  or  to  the  noblemen  who  nominated  them,  and  gave 
each  Parliament  scarcely  time  to  acquire  much  self-confidence, 
fixity  of  purpose,  or  consistency  of  organisation.  The  Septen- 
nial Act  and  the  presence  of  Walpole  in  the  House  of  Commons 
during  the  whole  of  his  long  ministry,  gradually  made  that 
body  the  undoubted  centre  of  authority.^  In  the  reign  of 
Anne  it  was  thought  quite  natural  that  Harley  and  St.  John 
should  accept  peerages  in  the  very  zenith  of  their  careers.  In 
the  reign  of  George  II.,  Walpole  only  accepted  a  title  in  the 
hour  of  defeat,  and  Pulteney,  by  taking  a  similar  step,  gave  a 
death-blow  to  his  political  influence. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  body  such  as  this  might  become  in  the 
highest  degree  dangerous  to  the  liberties  it  was  supposed  to 
protect,  and  it  showed  itself  in  many  respects  eminently  arbi- 

For  our  ministers  for  the  time  being  person  named  in   it   the   minister's 

have  always  the  nomination  of  their  footman.'— P«?'Z.  Hist.  xiii.  90. 
representatives,   and  make   such  an  '  Sir  E.  May's  Const.  Hist.  i.  317. 

arbitrary  use  of  it  that  they  often  order  *  Onslow  has   left   on  record  his 

them  to  choose  gentlemen  whom  they  opinion    that     the     Septennial    Act 

never  saw,  nor  heard  of,  perhaps,  till  formed  '  the  era  of  the  emancipation 

they  saw  their  names  on  the  minister's  of     the  Commons    from    its    former 

order  for  choosing  them.     This  order  dependence    on    the    Crown   and   on 

they   always    punctually   obey,   and  the  House  of  Lords.'— Coxe's  Life  qj 

would,  I  believe,  obey  it,  were  the  Walpole,  i.  75. 


CH.  in.  THE   KENTISH   PETITIONEES.  473 

trary  and  encroaching.     The  cases  of  Feuwick   and   Bernard! 
were  sufficiently  alarming  instances  of  the  assumption  by  the 
Legislature  of  judicial  functions,  but  in  these  cases  at  least  all 
the  three  branches  had  concurred.     In  other  cases,  however,  the 
lower  House  acted  alone.     One  of  the  rights  of  the   subject 
specially  guaranteed  by  the  Bill  of  Eights  was  that  of  petition, 
but  it  was  not  then  foreseen  that  the  House  of  Commons  ipiglit 
prove  as  hostile  to  it  as  the  King.     The  case  of  the  Kentish 
petitioners,  however,  clearly  showed  the  reality  of  this  danger. 
In  1701,  when  a  Tory  House  of  Commons,  in  bitter  opposition 
to  the  King  and  to  the  House  of  Lords,  had  impeached  Somers, 
delayed  the  supplies,  and  thwarted  every  attempt  to  put  the 
country  in  a  state  of  security,  a  firm,  but  perfectly  temperate 
and  respectful  petition  to  the  House  was  signed  by  the  grand 
jury  and  other  freeholders  of  Kent  recalling  the  great  servicca 
of  William,  and  imploring  the  House  to  turn  its  loyal  addresses 
into  Bills  of  supply,  and  to  enable  the  King  to  assist  his  allies 
before   it  was   too  late.     A  more  strictly  constitutional   pro- 
ceeding could  hardly  be  imagined,   but  because  this   petition 
reflected  on  the  policy  of  the  majority,  the   House   voted  it 
scandalous,   insolent,   and    seditious,  ordered  the  fi\e    gentle- 
men who  presented  it  into  custody,  and  kept  them  imprisoned 
for  two  months,  till  they  were  released  by  the  prorogation.    Nor 
was  this  all.     At  the  ensuing  dissolution  Mr.   Thomas  Cole- 
pepper,  who  had  been  one  of  the  five,  stood  for  Maidstone,  but  was 
defeated  by  two  votes.   He  petitioned  the  new  House  of  Commons 
for  the  seat,  but  it  at  once  condemned  him  as  guilty  of  corrup- 
tion, and  proceeded  to  show  the  spirit  in  which  it  had  tried  the 
case  by  reviving  the  question  of  the  Kentish  petition,  passing  a 
new  resolution  to  the  effect  that  the  petitioner  had  been  guilty 
of  '  scandalous,  villanous,  and  groundless  reflections  upon  the 
late   House  of  Commons,'  directing  the  Attorney-General   to 
prosecute  him  for  that  offence,  and  commiting  him  to  Newgate, 
where  he  remained  until  he  had  made  a  formal  apology.' 

'  Pari.    Higt.   \ol.  v.;    Somers,   Tracts,  xi.  242.      Hallams   Const.  Biit. 
vol.  iii. 


474  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

No  less  scandalous,  in  a  different  way,  was  the  case  of  the 
Aylesbury  election.  In  1703  an  elector  at  Aylesbury,  being 
denied  bis  right  to  vote  at  an  election,  carried  his  case  before 
the  law  courts.  At  the  assizes  his  right  to  vote  was  affirmed 
and  damao-es  were  given  against  those  who  had  denied  it; 
but  the  Queen's  Bench  quashed  the  proceedings,  the  majority 
of  the  Judges  maintaining,  in  opposition  to  Chief  Justice 
Holt  the  very  dangerous  doctrine  that  the  House  of  Commons 
alone  had  jurisdiction  in  all  cases  relating  to  elections.  The 
case  was  then  carried  before  the  House  of  Lords  as  the  highest 
judicial  tribunal  in  the  realm.  By  a  large  majority,  it  re- 
versed the  judgment  of  the  Queen's  Bench,  and  decided  that 
the  franchise  being  a  right  conferred  by  law,  upon  certain 
specified  conditions,  the  law  courts  had  the  power  of  deter- 
minino-  how  far  those  conditions  were  fulfilled.  But  far  from 
acquiescing  in  this  judicial  sentence,  the  House  of  Commons  at 
once  passed  resolutions  defying  it,  threatened  severe  punish- 
ment against  all  who  carried  questions  of  disputed  votes  into 
the  law  coiu:ts,  and  against  all  lawyers  who  assisted  them,  and 
actually  threw  four  persons  into  Newgate  for  taking  measures 
in  accordance  with  the  formal  judgment  of  the  supreme  law 
court  of  the  nation.  The  dispute  between  the  two  Houses  ran 
so  high  that  it  was  found  necessary  to  end  it  by  a  prorogation.' 

In  many  other  ways  the  same  spirit  was  shown.  For  a 
considerable  time,  and  especially  during  the  reign  of  Anne,  the 
House  of  Commons  assumed  a  regular  censorship  over  the  press. 
I  have  already  referred  to  the  number  of  acts  of  severity 
against  public  writers  in  that  reign,  and  it  is  one  of  the  worst 
features  connected  with  them  that  in  numerous  cases  they  were 
simply  party  measures  effected  by  the  mere  motion  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  Thus  Steele  was  expelled  for  political 
libels,  and  Asgill  on  the  pretext  of  an  absurd  book  '  On  the 
Possibility  of  Avoiding  Death.'  Defoe  was  prosecuted  by  the 
House  of  Commons  for  his  '  Shortest  Way  with  Dissenters.' 
Tutchin,  by  order  of  the  House,  was  whipped  by  the  hangman. 

'  Pari.  Hist.  vi. ;  State  Trials,  xiv.     Hallam's  Const.  Hist.  vol.  iii. 


en.  m.  DEAN   NO  WELL'S  SERMON.  475 

Wellwood,  the  editor  of  the  '  Mercurius  Kusticus,'  Dyer,  the 
editor  of  the  well-known  '  News  Letter,'  and  Fogg,  the  pro- 
prietor of  '  Mist's  Journal,'  were  compelled  to  express  on  their 
knees  their  contrition  to  the  House.  Whitehead's  poem  called 
'  Manners  '  was  voted  a  libel.  The  sermon  of  Binckes,  comparing 
the  sufferings  of  Charles  I.  to  those  of  Christ,  a  treatise  by  a  physi- 
cian named  Coward,  asserting  the  material  nature  of  the  soul, 
the  sermons  of  Fleetwood,  the  bishop  of  St.  Asaph's,  were  all,  by 
order  of  the  House,  burnt  by  the  hangman.  Occasionally,  as  in 
the  case  of  Hoadly,  the  House  passed  resolutions  of  approval.' 
Of  the  value  of  its  approbation  and  of  its  censure  we  have  a 
curious  illustration  in  an  incident  which  took  place  long  after 
the  period  I  am  now  describing.  In  1772  Dean  Nowell  was 
appointed  to  preach  the  customary  sermon  before  the  House  on 
the  anniversary  of  the  Restoration.  Only  three  or  four  Mem- 
bers were  present,  and  they  are  said  to  have  been  asleep  during 
the  sermon,  but  the  House,  as  usual,  passed,  unanimously,  a 
vote  of  thanks  to  the  preacher,  and  in  terms  of  high  eulogy 
ordered  the  sermon  to  be  printed.  When  it  appeared  it  was 
found  that  the  preacher,  being  an  extreme  Tory,  had  availed 
himself  of  the  occasion  to  denounce  in  the  strongest  languasfe 
the  Puritans  and  their  principles,  to  extol  the  royal  martyr  in 
terms  of  which  it  can  be  only  said  that  they  were  a  faithful 
echo  of  the  Church  service  for  the  day,  and  to  urge  that  the 
qualities  of  Charles  I.  w^ere  very  accurately  reproduced  in  the 
reigning  sovereign.  The  House  of  Commons,  which  was  at  this 
time  strongly  Whig,  was  both  exasperated  and  perplexed.  It 
was  felt  that  it  would  be  scarcely  becoming  to  condemn  to  the 
flames  a  sermon  which  had  been  printed  by  its  express  order 
and  honoured  by  its  thanks,  and  it  accordingly  contented  itself 
with  ordering,  without  a  division,  that  its  vote  of  thanks  should 
be  expunged.'^ 

There  were  many  other  prerogatives  claimed  by  the  House 

'  Hunt's  Foui-tk  E^ate.  Andrew's       ii.  194-196. 
Hist,  of  British  Juurnalism.     Towns-  *  Pari.      Jlisf.       xvii.      311-318. 

end's  Ilist.  of  the  House  of  Commons,       G'xbhon's  Miscellaneous  \Vorhs,ii.-p.l9i. 


476  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

of  Commons  which  savoured  largely  of  despotism.  The  term 
privilege  comprised  an  extended  and  ill-defined  domain  of 
power  external  to  the  law.  The  House  claimed  the  right  of 
imprisoning  men  to  the  end  of  the  current  session  by  its  sole 
authority,  and  its  victims  could  be  neither  bailed  nor  released 
bv  the  law  courts.'  It  even  claimed  for  itself  collectively,  and 
for  each  of  its  Members  in  his  parliamentary  capacity,  a  com- 
plete freedom  from  hostile  criticism.^  Its  Members,  though 
they  were  presumed  by  the  property  qualification  to  be  men  of 
means,  enjoyed  an  immunity  from  all  actions  of  law  and  suits 
of  equity,  and  were  thus  able  to  set  their  creditors  at  defiance, 
and  the  same  privilege,  till  the  reign  of  Greorge  III.,  was  ex- 
tended to  their  servants.^  An  immense  amount  of  fraud, 
violence,  and  oppression  was  thus  sheltered  from  punishment, 
and  the  privilege  appeared  peculiarly  odious  at  a  time  when  the 
ascendency  of  law  was  in  other  departments  becoming  more  com- 
plete. Almost  every  injury  in  word  or  act  done  to  a  Member  of 
Parliament  was,  during  the  reign  of  George  II.,  voted  a  breach 
of  privilege,  and  thus  brought  under  the  immediate  and  often 
vindictive  jurisdiction  of  tlie  House.  Among  the  offences  thus 
characterised  were  shooting  the  rabbits  of  one  Member,  poaching 
on  the  fishponds  of  another,  injuring  the  trees  of  a  third,  and 
stealing  the  coal  of  a  fourth.* 

The  abuse  of  the  judicial  functions  that  were  properly  and 
reasonably  assumed  by  the  House  was  scandalous  and  notorious. 
Even  the  occasional  expulsions  of  Members  for  corruption  were 
often  themselves  the  corrupt  acts  of  a  corrupt  majority,  perfectly 
indifferent  to  the  evidence  before    them,  and  intent  only   on 

*  Thus    in    1699     the    Commons  privileges  of  the  House  of  Commons.' 

resolved,    '  That  to   assert  that  the  Burgh's  Political  Disquisi/iotis,  i.  208. 
House  of  Commons  have  no  power  of  *  See  much  curious   information 

commitment  but  of  their  ovm  members  about  these   abuses   of  privilege   in 

tends  to  the  subversion  of  the  consti-  Burgh's  Political  Disquisitions ;  or,  an 

tution  of  the  House  of  Commons.'  Inquiry  into  Public  Errors  and  Abuses 

2  'That  to  print   or  publish  any  (Lond.  1774),  i.  pp.  205-235. 
books  or  libels   reflecting  upon  the  ^IjordL^iSiOhoT^e's  Hist,  of  England, 

proceedings  of    the   House  of    Com-  iv.  20-21.     See,  too,  the  chapters  on 

mons  or  of  any  Member  thereof,  for  Parliamentary   Privilege  in    Hallam 

or    relating  to  his    service    therein,  and  Townsend. 
is  a  high  violation  of  the  rights  and 


CH.  III.  DISPUTED  ELECTIONS.  477 

driving  out  an  opponent.     The  decisions  on  disputed  elections 
were  something  more   than    a   scandal.     They   threatened    to 
subvert  the    whole    theory    of    representation.      The  trial    of 
disputed    elections    had    been   originally  committed  to    select 
committees   specially  nominated,    and   afterwards  to   a    single 
body  called  the  Committee  of  Privileges  and  Elections,  chosen 
by  the  House,  and  composed,  for  the  most  part,  of  Privy  Coun- 
cillors and  eminent  lawyers.     In  1672,  however,  it  was  delegated 
to  an  open  committee,  in  which  all  who  came  were  allowed  to 
have  voices,  and  afterwards  elections  were  tried  at  the  bar  of 
the   House,  and  decided  by  a  general  vote.'     This  vote   was 
soon  openly  and  almost  invariably  given  through  party  motives. 
It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  more  grotesque  travesty  of  a 
judicial   proceeding   than  was   habitually   exhibited    on   these 
occasions,  when  private  friends  of  each  candidate  and  the  mem- 
bers of  the  rival  parties  mustered  their  forces  to  vote  entirely 
irrespectively  of  the    merits   of  the  case,  when,  the  farce  of 
hearing    evidence   having   been   gone   through    in    an  empty 
House,  the  Members,  who  had  been  waiting  without,  streamed 
in,  often  half  intoxicated,  to  the  division,  and  when  the  plainest 
and  most  incontestable  testimony  was  set  aside  without  scruple 
if  it  clashed  vsdth  the  party  interests  of  the  majority.^      The 
evil  had  already  become  apparent  in  the  latter  days  of  William,' 
but  some  regard  for  appearances  seems  then  to  have  been  ob- 
served, and  the  partiality  was  shown  chiefly  in  the  very  different 
degrees  of  stringency  with  which  corruption  was  judged  in  the 
case  of  friend  and  foe.     Soon,  however,  all  shame  was  cast  aside. 
In  the  Tory  parliament  of  1702,  the  controverted   elections,  in 
the  words  of  Burnet,  '  were  judged  in  favour  of   Tories  with 
Such  a  barefaced  partiality,  that  it  showed  the  party  was  re- 
solved on  everything  that  might  serve  their  ends.'  •*     When  the 
Whigs  triumphed  in  1705  they  exhibited  the  same  spirit,  and  in 
the  few  cases  in  wliich  they  did  not  decide  in  favour  of  the  ^^^lig 

»  Sir  E.  :May"s  Cond.  Hist.  i.  307-  '  Burnet's  Onn  Times,  ii.  1C2,  259. 

308.  *  Ibid.  p.  334. 

*  Pari.  Hist.  xvii.  1004. 


478  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  in. 

candidate  the  result  was  ascribed  exclusively  to  some  private  ani- 
mosity.i  Speaker  Onslow,  who  for  thirty-three  years  presided  over 
the  House  with  great  dignity  and  integrity,  declared  that  it  had 
*  really  come  to  be  deemed  by  many  a  piece  of  virtue  and  honour 
to  do  injustice  in  these  cases.  "  The  right  is  in  the  friend  and 
not  in  the  cause  "  is  almost  avowed,  and  he  is  laughed  at  by  the 
leaders  of  parties  who  has  scruples  upon  it,'  *  and  yet,'  he  adds, 
'we  should  not  bear  this  a  month  in  any  other  judicature  in 
the  kingdom,  in  any  other  object  of  j  urisdiction,  or — in  this ; 
but  we  do  it  ourselves  and  that  sanctifies  it,  and  the  guilt  is 
lost  in  the  number  of  the  guilty  and  the  support  of  the  party 
without  doors.' '^  In  the  Parliament  which  met  in  1728  there 
were  nearly  seventy  election  petitions  to  be  tried,  and  Lord 
Hervey  has  left  us  an  account  of  how  the  House  discharged  its 
functions.  'I  believe,'  he  says,  'the  manifest  injustice  and 
glaring  violation  of  all  truth  in  the  decisions  of  this  Parlia- 
ment surpass  even  the  most  flagrant  and  infamous  instances  of 
any  of  their  predecessors.  They  voted  in  one  case  forty  more 
than  ninety ;  in  another  they  cut  oflF  the  votes  of  about  seven 
towns,  and  some  thousand  voters,  who  had  not  only  been  deter- 
mined to  have  voices  by  former  Committees  of  Elections,  but 
had  had  their  right  of  voting  confirmed  to  them  by  the  express 
words  of  an  Act  of  Parliament  and  the  authority  of  the  whole 
Legislature.  There  was  a  string  of  these  equitable  determina- 
tions in  about  half  a  dozen  instances,  so  unwarrantable  and  in- 
defensible that  people  grew  ashamed  of  pretending  to  talk  of 
right  and  wrong,  laughed  at  that  for  which  they  ought  to  have 
blushed,  and  declared  that  in  elections  they  never  considered 
the  cause  but  the  men,  nor  ever  voted  according  to  justice  and 
right,  but  from  solicitation  and  favour.'  ^  The  true  character 
of  these  professedly  judicial  proceedings  w^as  so  clearly  recog- 
nised that  a  defeat  in  a  division  about  the  Chippenham  election 
was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  resignation  of  Walpole,  and  the 

>  Burnet's  Orvn  Times,  ii.  429.  103.     See,  too.  Walpoles  Memoirg   of 

*  Onslow's  note  in  Burnet,  ii.  410.       George  II.,  ii.  14,  Pari.  Hist.  vi.  49, 
'  Lord  Hervey's  Memoirs,  i.    102,       50. 


CH.  III.  PARLIAMENTAEY  EEPORTING.  471) 

votes  of  the  '  King's  friends '  against  the  Government  in  elec- 
tion cases  formed,  in  the  beginning  of  the  next  reign,  one  of  the 
great  complaints  of  Eockingham.  A  small  majority,  consistino- 
mainly  of  the  representatives  of  rotten  boroughs,  could  thus 
easily  convert  itself  into  a  large  one,  and  override  the  plainest 
wishes  of  constituencies  ;  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  a 
considerable  proportion  of  the  Members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons owed  their  seats,  not  to  the  electors,  but  to  the  House 
itself. 

Xext  to  the  existence  of  open  constituencies,  and  a  fair  mode 
of  election,  the  best  security  a  nation  can  possess  for  the  fidelity 
of  its  representatives  is  to  be  found  in  the  system  of  parlia- 
mentary reporting.     But  this  also  was  wanting.     The  theory  of 
the   statesmen  of  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
that  the  electors  had  no  right  to  know  the  proceedings  of  their 
representatives,  and  it  was  only  after  a  long  and  dangerous 
struggle,  which  was  not  terminated  till  the  reign  of  Greorge  III., 
that  the  right  of  printing  debates  was  virtually  conceded.     A 
few  fragmentary  reports,  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  have 
come  down  to  us  ;  but  the  first  systematic  reporting  dates  from 
the  Long  Parliament,  which  in  1641  permitted  it  in  a  certain 
specified  form.    The  reports  appeared  under  the  title  of  '  Diurnal 
Occurrences  of  Parliament,'  and  continued  until  the  Kestoration ; 
but  all  unlicensed  reporting  was  stringently  forbidden,  and  the 
House  even  expelled  and  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  one  of  its 
Members,   Sir  E.  Bering,   for  printing,  without  permission,  a 
collection   of  his   own   speeches.      The  secrecy  of  debate  was 
originally  intended  as  a  protection  from  the  King,  but  it  was 
soon  valued  as  a  shelter  from  the  supervision  of  the  consti- 
tuencies.     At   the   Restoration  all    reporting   was   forbidden, 
though  the  votes  and  proceedings  of  the  House  were  printed  by 
direction  of  the  Speaker,  and  from  this  time  till  the  Eevolution 
only  a  few   relics   of  parliamentary    debates    were  preserved. 
Andrew  Marvell,  the    friend  of  Milton,  and  his  assistant,  as 
Secretary  to  Cromwell,  sent  regular  reports  to  his  constituents, 
from  1660  to  1678.     Locke,  at  the  suggestion  of  Shaftesbury, 


480  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

wrote  a  report  of  a  debate  which  took  place  in  the  House  of 
Lords  ia  1675,  and  he  printed  it  under  the  title  of  'A  Letter 
from  a  Person  of  Quality  to  his  Friend,'  but,  by  order  of  the 
Privy  Council,  it  was  burnt  by  the  hangman.  Shaftesbury 
himself  wrote  some  reports.  Anchitell  Grey,  a  Member  for 
Derby,  was  accustomed  for  many  years  to  take  notes  of  the 
debates,  which  were  published  in  1769,  and  which  form  one  of 
our  most  important  sources  of  information  about  the  period 
immediately  following  the  Revolution.  Occasionally  a  news- 
letter published  an  outline  of  what  had  occurred,  but  this  was 
done  in  direct  defiance  of  the  resolutions  of  the  House,  and  was 
often  followed  by  a  speedy  punishment.  In  the  latter  years  of 
Anne,  however,  the  circle  of  political  interests  had  very  widely 
extended,  and,  to  meet  the  demand,  short  summaries  of  parlia- 
mentary debates,  compiled  from  recollections,  began  to  appear 
every  month  in  Boyer's  '  Political  State  of  Great  Britain,'  and 
in  the  following  reign  in  the  '  Historical  Register.'  Cave,  who 
was  one  of  the  most  enterprising  booksellers  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  perceived  the  great  popularity  likely  to  be  derived  from 
such  reports,  and  he  showed  great  resolution  in  procuring  them. 
In  1728  he  was  brought  before  the  House  of  Commons,  confined 
for  several  days,  and  obliged  to  apologise  for  having  furnished 
his  friend  Robert  Raikes  with  minutes  of  its  proceedings  for 
the  use  of  the  '  Gloucester  Journal,'  and  at  the  same  time  the 
House  passed  a  strong  resolution,  declaring  such  reports  a  breach 
of  privilege.  They  were  too  popular,  however,  to  be  put  down, 
and  in  the  next  year  Raikes  again  incurred  the  censure  of  the 
House  for  the  same  offence.  In  1731  Cave  started  the 
'  Gentleman's  Magazine,'  which  was  soon  followed  by  its  rival 
the  'London  Magazine,'  and  in  1736  Cave  began  to  make 
parliamentary  reports  a  prominent  feature  of  his  periodical. 
He  was  accustomed  to  obtain  entrance  to  the  gallery  of  the 
House  with  a  friend  or  two,  to  take  down  secretly  the  names  of 
the  speakers  and  the  drift  of  their  arguments,  and  then  to  repair 
at  once  to  a  neighbouring  coffee-house,  where,  from  the  united 
recollections  of  the  party,  a  rude  report  was  compiled,  which 


I 


CH.  III.  PAELIAMENTARY  EEPORTINfJ.  481 

was  afterwards  elaborated  and  adorned  by  a  more  skilful  writer. 
This  latter  function  was  at  first  fulfilled  by  a  now  forgotten 
historian  named  Guthrie.  From  November  1740  to  February 
1742-43  it  was  discharged  by  Dr.  Johnson,  and  afterwards  by 
Hawkesworth,  the  well-known  editor  of '  Travels  '  and  biographer 
of  Swift.  Eeports  compiled  in  a  somewhat  similar  manner,  by 
a  Scotch  Presbyterian  minister,  named  Gordon,  appeared  in  the 
'  London  Magazine,'  and  they  speedily  spread  into  different 
newspapers.  To  elude,  if  possible,  the  severity  of  the  House, 
they  only  appeared  during  the  recess,  and  only  the  first  and  last 
letters  of  the  names  of  the  speakers  were  given.' 

The  subject  was  brought  before  the  House  of  Commons  by 
the  Speaker  Onslow,  in  April  1738,  and  a  debate  ensued,  of 
which  a  full  report  has  been  preserved.  It  is  remarkable  tliat 
the  only  speaker  who  adopted  what  we  should  now  regard  as  the 
constitutional  view  of  the  subject  was  the  Tory  leader,  Sir  W. 
Windham.  He  conciured,  indeed,  in  tlie  condemnation  of  the 
reports  that  were  appearing,  but  only  on  the  ground  of  their 
frequent  inaccuracy,  and  took  occasion  to  say  that  '  he  had 
indeed  seen  many  speeches  that  were  fairly  and  accurately  taken  ; 
that  no  gentleman,  where  that  is  the  case,  ought  to  be  ashamed 
that  the  world  should  know  every  word  he  speaks  in  this  House,' 
*  that  the  public  might  have  a  right  to  know  somewhat  more  of 
the  proceedings  of  the  House  than  what  appears  fi-om  the  votes,' 
and  chat  if  he  were  sure  that  the  sentiments  of  gentlemen  were 
not  misrepresented,  he '  would  be  against  coming  to  any  resolution 
that  would  deprive  them  of  a  knowledge  that  is  so  necessary  for 
their  being  able  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  their  representatives.' 
The  language,  however,  of  the  other  speakers  was  much  more 
unqualified.  '  If  we  do  not  put  a  speedy  stop  to  this  practice,' 
said  Winnington,  '  it  will  be  looked  upon  without  doors  that  we 
have  no  power  to  do  iL  .  .  .  You  will  have  every  word  that  is 
spoken  here  misrepresented  by  fellows  who  thrust  themselves 

'  See  Dr.  Johnson's  Life  of  Cave ;  422 ;  and  the  History  of  Reporting, 
Nichols'  Literary  Anecdotes,  v.  1-18  ;  in  Hunt's  Fourth  Estate, and.  Andrews' 
May's  Coiutitutionul  Ilisftory,  i.  \2\-       Hiet.  of  Britiith  JoHmalism. 


VOL.  I. 


32 


482  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ni. 

into  our  gallery.  You  will  have  the  speeches  of  this  House  every 
day  printed,even  during  your  Session,  and  we  shall  be  looked  upon 
as  the  most  contemptible  assembly  on  the  face  of  the  earth.'  '  It 
is  absolutely  necessary,'  said  Pulteney,  '  a  stop  should  be  put  to 
the  practice  which  has  been  so  justly  complained  of.  1  think 
no  appeals  should  be  made  to  the  public  with  regard  to  what  is 
said  in  this  assembly,  and  to  print  or  publish  the  speeches  of 
gentlemen  in  this  House,  even  though  they  were  not  misrepre- 
sented, looks  very  like  making  them  accountable  without  doors 
for  what  they  say  within.'  Walpole  was  equally  unqualified  in 
his  condemnation,  but  he  dwelt  exclusively  on  the  inaccuracy 
and  dishonesty  of  the  reports,  which  were,  no  doubt,  very  great, 
and  were  a  natural  consequence  of  the  way  in  which  they  were 
taken.  '  I  have  read  debates,'  he  said,  '  in  which  I  have  been 
made  to  speak  the  very  reverse  of  what  I  meant.  I  have  read 
others  of  them  wherein  all  the  wit,  the  learning,  and  the  argu- 
ment has  been  thrown  into  one  side,  and  on  the  other  nothing 
but  what  was  low,  mean,  and  ridiculous,  and  yet  when  it  comes 
to  the  question,  the  division  has  gone  against  the  side  which 
upon  the  face  of  the  debate  had  reason  and  justice  to  support  it.' 
'  You  have  punished  some  persons  for  forging  the  names  of 
gentlemen  on  the  backs  of  letters ;  but  this  is  a  forgery  of  a 
worse  kind,  for  it  misrepresents  the  sense  of  Parliament,  and 
imposes  on  the  understanding  of  the  whole  nation.'  The  result 
of  the  debate  was  a  unanimous  resolution  '  that  it  is  a  high 
indignity  to,  and  a  notorious  breach  of  the  privileges  of  this 
House '  to  print  the  debates  or  other  proceedings  of  the  House 

*  as  well  during  the  recess  as  the  sitting  of  Parliament,  and  that 
this  House  will  proceed  with  the  utmost  severity  against  such 
offenders.' ' 

The  threat  was  only  partially  effectual.  Cave  continued  the 
publication  in  a  new  form,  as  '  Debates  in  the  Senate  of  Great 
Lilliput,'  and  substituted  extravagant  fancy  names  for  the 
initials  of  the  speakers.     In  the  '  London  Magazine,'   debates 

*  of  the  Political  Club  '  appeared,  and  the  affairs  of  the  nation 

»  Pari.  Hist.  x.  pp.  800-811,     Coxe's  lAfe  of  Walpole^  ch.  50. 


CH.  m.  PAKLIAMENTAEY  REPORTING.  483 

were  discussed  under  a  transparent  disguise  by  personages  in 
Eoman  history.  Meagre,  inaccurate,  and  often  obscure,  as 
these  reports  necessarily  were,  they  were  still  very  popular  ;  but 
there  was  no  small  risk  in  producing  them.  Careful  disguise 
was  necessary,  and  Cave  thought  it  henceforth  advisable  to  print 
under  the  name  of  his  nephew.  In  1747  the  editors  of  both 
magazines  were  summoned  before  the  House  of  Lords  for  having 
given  an  account  of  Lord  Lovat's  trial,  and  they  only  escaped 
imprisonment  by  an  abject  apology.  In  1752  Cave  returned  to 
the  former  plan  of  inserting  initials  of  the  speakers,  and  he 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  again  molested  during  the  short 
remainder  of  his  life.^  Many  other  printers,  however,  were 
summoned  before  the  battle  was  finally  won.  So  jealous  was 
the  House  of  everything  that  could  enable  the  constituencies  to 
keep  a  watchful  eye  upon  their  representatives,  that  it  was  only 
in  the  eighteenth  century  that  the  votes  of  the  House  were 
printed  without  formal  permission,^  while  the  names  of  the 
Members  who  had  voted  were  wholly  concealed.  In  1696  the 
publication  of  the  names  of  a  minority  was  voted  a  breach  of 
privilege  '  destructive  to  the  freedom  and  liberties  of  Parlia- 
ment.' During  almost  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
publication  of  division  lists  was  a  rare  and  exceptional  thing,  due 
to  the  exertions  of  individual  Members,  and  it  was  not  until 
1836  that  it  was  undertaken  by  the  House  itself.' 

The  system  of  Parliamentary  reporting  contributed,  perhaps, 
more  than  any  other  influence  to  mitigate  the  glaring  corrup- 

'  He  died  Jan.  1754.  dropped  I  cannot  so  well  account  for, 

*  In  the  discussion  on  the  publica-  but  I  think  it  high  time  for  us  to 

tion  of  debates,  to  which  I  have  just  prevent    any  further    encroachment 

referred,  Pulteney  is  reported  to  have  upon  our  priWleges.' — Pari.  Hist.  x. 

said:   'I  remember  the  time   when  806-807.     In   1703,  during  the   dis- 

this  House  was  so  jealous,  so  cautious  cussions  of   the  House  of    Commons 

of  doing  anything  that  might  look  with  the  Lords,  the  former  passed  a 

like  an  appeal  to  their  constituents,  resolution    'that   the   votes    of    the 

that  not  even  the  votes  were  printed  House   should    not  be  printed,  and 

without  leave.     A  gentleman  every  that  this  might  be  a  standing  order.' 

day  rose  in  his  place  and  desired  the  Boyer's  Queen  Anne,  p.  47. 
Chair  to  ask  leave  of  the  House  that  *  ^z-y'sCotuiitutioiuil  Hist.  i.  439- 

their  votes  for   that  day  should  be  441. 
printed.  How  this  custom  came  to  be 


484  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  in. 

tion  of  Parliament,  for  although  several  laws  dealing  directly  with 
the  evil  were  enacted  in  obedience  to  the  clamour  out-of-doors, 
they  were  allowed  to  a  very  large  extent  to  remain  inoperative.  It 
was  useless  to  arraign  offenders  before  a  tribunal  of  accomplices, 
and  as  lono-  as  the  Executive  and  the  majority  in  Parliament 
conspired  to  practise  and  to  shelter  corruption,  laws  against  it 
were  a  dead  letter.  Bribery  at  elections  had  been  condemned 
by  a  law  of  William  III.,'  and  another  measure  of  great  strin- 
gency was  carried  against  it  in  1729.  By  this  law  any  elector 
might  be  compelled  on  demand  to  take  an  oath  swearing  that  he 
had  received  no  bribe  to  influence  his  vote,  and  any  person  who 
was  convicted  of  either  giving  or  receiving  a  bribe  at  elections 
was  deprived  for  ever  of  the  franchise  and  fined  500L  unless  he 
purchased  indemnity  by  discovering  another  offender  of  the 
same  kind.^  Some  measures  had  also  been  taken  to  limit  the 
number  of  placemen  and  pensioners  in  Parliament.  In  1692  a 
Bill  for  expelling  all  who  accepted  places  after  a  certain  date 
from  the  House  of  Commons  passed  that  House,  but  was  rejected 
in  the  Lords.  In  1693,  after  undergoing  material  alterations  it 
was  carried  through  both  Houses,  but  vetoed  by  the  Crown.  In 
1694  a  new  Place  Bill  was  introduced,  but  this  time  it  was 
defeated  in  the  Commons.  A  clause  of  the  Act  of  Settlement, 
however,  carried  out  the  principle  in  the  most  rigid  form,  pro- 
viding that  after  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Hanover  no 
person  who  held  any  office,  place  of  profit,  or  pension  from 
the  King  should  have  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but 
this  clause,  which  would  have  banished  the  ministers  from  the 
popular  branch  of  the  Legislature,  never  came  into  operation. 
It  was  repealed  in  1706,  while  Anne  was  still  on  the  throne,  and 
replaced  by  a  law  providing  that  every  Member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  who  accepted  office  under  the  Crown  should  be  com- 
pelled to  vacate  his  seat  and  could  only  sit  after  re-election. 
Occasionally,  when  a  new  class  of  offices  was  created,  its  mem- 
bers were  incapacitated  by  law  from  sitting  in  the  House  of 

>  7  William  in.  c.  4.  xii.  648.     Ralph's  Use  and  Abuse  of 

*  2  George  II.  c.  24.  See  Pari.  Hist.      Parliaments,  ii.  382-384. 


CH.  III.  PLACE  BILLS.  485 

Commons.  Thus  in  1 694,  when  certain  duties  on  salt,  beer,  and 
other  liquors  were  granted  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  the 
war  with  France,  it  was  enacted  that  no  Member  of  the  House 
of  Commons  might  be  concerned  in  farming,  collecting,  or 
managing  any  of  the  sums  granted  to  his  Majesty  by  this  Act 
*  except  the  Commissioners  of  the  Treasury,  Customs,  and 
Excise,  not  exceeding  the  present  number  in  each  office,  and  the 
Commissioners  of  the  land  tax.'  In  1700  all  Commissioners 
and  other  officers  of  the  Customs  were  disqualified  from  sitting 
in  the  House,  and  the  Act  of  1706  extended  the  disability  to  all 
offices  created  after  that  date,  limited  the  number  of  Commis- 
sioners appointed  to  execute  any  office,  and  excluded  all  who 
held  pensions  from  the  Crown  during  pleasure.  Under  George 
I.  this  exclusion  was  extended  to  those  who  held  pensions 
during  a  term  of  years.  Had  these  laws  been  enforced, 
they  would  have  done  very  much  to  purify  Parliament,  but  the 
pension  bills  at  least,  were  treated  with  complete  contempt.  The 
pensions  were  secret.  The  Grovernment  refused  all  information 
concerning  them.  A  Bill  was  three  times  brought  forward 
compelling  every  Member  to  swear  that  he  was  not  in  receipt 
of  such  a  pension,  and  that  if  he  accepted  one  he  would  within 
fourteen  days  disclose  it  to  the  House,  but  by  the  influence  of 
Walpole  it  was  three  times  defeated.  A  similar  fate  during  the 
Walpole  administration  befell  Bills  for  restricting  the  number 
of  placemen  in  the  House,  but  in  the  great  outburst  of  popular 
indignation  that  followed  his  downfall  one  measure  of  this 
kind  was  carried.  The  Place  Bill  of  1743  excluded  a  certain 
number  of  inferior  placeholders  from  Parliament,  and  in  some 
degree  mitigated  the  evil.'  It  was,  however,  the  only  step  that 
was  taken.  Pelham  would,  probably,  never  have  corrupted  Par- 
liament had  he  found  it  pure,"^  but  he  inherited  a  system  of 

'  See  Hallam's  C(?«^.  5i«f..ch.  XV.  He    says:     'I    believe    Mr.   Pelham 

and  xvi.    Fischel  on  the  Etujlish  Con-  would  never  have  wet   his  finger  in 

ttitution,  p.  4.S.3.  corruption  if  Sir  R.  Walpole  had  not 

'  Horace     Walpole,     who    hated  dipped  up  to  the  elbow;    but  as  he 

Pelham,  and   alwaj's  put  the   worst  did  dip,  and  as  Mr.  Pelham  was  per- 

colouring  on  his  acts,  admitted  this.  suaded  that   it  was  as  necessary  for 


486  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  ni. 

corruption,  and  he  bequeathed  it  almost  intact  to  his  succes- 


sors. 


The  efforts  that  were  made  to  shorten  the  duration  of  Par- 
liament were  still  less  successful.    We  have  already  seen  the  chief 
reasons  that  induced  the  Whig  party  to  pass  the  Septennial  Act, 
and  some  of  the  results  which  it   produced.      Its   beneficial 
effect  in  repressing  disorder  and  immorality,  in  giving  a  new 
stability  to  English  policy,  a  new  strength  to  the  dynasty,   and 
a  new  authority  to  the  House  of  Commons,  can  never  be  for- 
gotten.    It  was  accompanied,  however,  by  no  measure  of  parlia- 
mentary reform,  and  it  had  the  inevitable  effect  of  greatly 
increasing  corruption  both  at  elections  and  in  the  House.     The 
price  of  seats  at  once  rose  when  their  tenure  was  prolonged,  and 
the  change  in  the  class  of  candidates  which  had  been  in  progress 
since  the  Eevolution  was  gieatly  accelerated.     In  most  rural 
constituencies  it  was  impossible,  when  elections  were  very  fre- 
quent, for  any  stranger  to  compete  with  the  steady  influence  of 
the  resident  landlord.     When,  however,  elections  became  com- 
paratively rare,  money  became  in  many  districts  more  powerful 
than  influence.     The  value  of  the  prize  being  enhanced,  men 
were  prepared  to  give  more  to  obtain  it ;  and  rich  merchants, 
coming  down  to  constituencies  where  they  were  perfect  strangers, 
were  able,  by  the  expenditure  of  large  sums  at  long  intervals,  to 
wrest  the   representatiou  from   the  resident  gentry.     At  the 
same   time,  the  means  of   corruption  at  the   disposal  of  the 
Government  were  enormously  increased.      It  was  a  comnjon 
thing  for  a  minister  to  endeavour  to  buy  the  vote  of  a  new 
Member  by  the  offer  of  a  pension.     Under  the  old  system  the 
Member  knew  that  in  three  years  he  would  be  called  to  account 
by  his  constituents,  and  might  lose  both  his  pension  and  his 
seat.     By  the  Septennial  Act  the  value  of  the  bribe  was  more 
than  doubled,  for  its  enjoyment  was  virtually  secured  for  seven 
years. 

To  these  arguments  it  was  added  that  the  Septennial  Act 

him  to  be  minister  as  it  was  for  Sir      Horace  Walpole's  Memoirs  of  George 
R.  Walpole,  he  plunged  as  deep.' —       II.  i.  235. 


CH.  III.  THE  SEPTENNL^L   ACT.  487 

had  a  social  influence  which  was  far  from  beneficial.  Then  as 
now  Parliament  contributed  largely  to  set  the  tone  of  manners. 
Under  the  former  system  a  landlord  who  aspired  to  a  political 
position  found  an  almost  constant  residence  on  his  estate  indis- 
pensable. When  Parliaments  became  less  frequent  the  necessity 
grew  less  stringent,  and  it  was  noticed  as  a  consequence  of  the 
Septennial  Act  that  country  gentlemen  were  accustomed  to 
spend  much  more  of  their  time  and  fortune  than  formerly  in 
the  metropolis. 

There  can,  however,  I  think,  be  little  doubt  that  the  Govern- 
ment were  right  in  maintaining  the  Septennial  Act,  and  that  a 
return  to  the  system  which  had  rendered  English  politics  so 
anarchical  in  the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  open- 
ing years  of  the  eighteenth  century  would  have  produced  more 
eWls  than  it  could  have  cured.  It  is  a  remarkable  illustration  of 
the  changes  that  may  pass  over  party  warfare,  that  the  Eepubli- 
can  Milton  at  one  time  advocated  the  appointment  of  Mem- 
bers for  life  ; '  that  the  Tory  party  under  Walpole  and  Pelham 
advocated  triennial  and  even  annual  Parliaments,  which  after- 
wards became  the  watchwords  of  the  most  extreme  radicals ;  that 
the  Whigs,  taking  their  stand  upon  the  Septennial  Act,  contended 
against  the  Tories  for  the  greater  duration  of  Parliament,  and 
that  a  reform  which  was  demanded  as  of  capital  importance  by 
the  Tories  under  George  I.  and  George  II.,  and  by  the  Radicals 
in  the  succeeding  reigns,  has  at  present  scarcely  a  champion  in 
England.  It  must,  however,  be  added  that  recent  reforms  have 
considerably  diminished  the  average  duration  of  Parliaments, 
and  that  since  the  Septennial  Act  there  had  been  only  one  in- 
stance of  a  premature  dissolution'^  before  1784.  In  the  early 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  proposed  reduction  of  the 
duration  of  Parliaments  was  very  popular  throughout  the 
country.  It  was  supported  with  great  power  by  Sir  W.  Wind- 
ham in  1734,  and  in  1745  a  motion  for  annual  Parliaments  was 
only  defeated  by  145  to  113 

'  See  his  Ready  and  Easy  Way  to  Establish  a  CommonmeaMh. 
*  In  1747. 


488      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  m. 

It  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  a  Parliament  so  thoroughly 
vicious  in  its  constitution,  so  narrow,  corrupt,  and  often  despotic 
in  its  tendencies  as  that  which  I  have  described,  should  have 
proved  itself,  in  any  degree,  a  faithful  guardian  of  English  liberty, 
or  should  have  produced  so  large  an  amount  of  wise,  temperate, 
and  tolerant  legislation  as  it  unquestionably  did.  Keasoning  from 
its  constitution  and  from  some  of  its  acts,  we  might  have  sup- 
posed that  it  would  be  wholly  inaccessible  to  public  opinion, 
and  would  have  established  a  system  of  the  most  absolute  and 
most  ignoble  tyranny ;  yet  no  one  who  candidly  considers  the 
general  tenour  of  English  administration  during  the  long  period 
of  Whig  ascendency  in  the  eighteenth  century  can  question 
that  Voltaire  and  Montesquieu  were  correct  in  describing  it  as 
greatly  superior  to  the  chief  governments  of  the  Continent. 
In  truth  the  merits  of  a  government  depend  much  more  upon 
the  character  of  men  than  upon  the  framework  of  institutions. 
There  have  been  legislative  bodies,  constructed  on  the  largest, 
freest,  and  most  symmetrical  plan,  which  have  been  the  passive 
instruments  of  despotism ;  and  there  have  been  others  which, 
though  saturated  with  corruption  and  disfigured  by  every 
description  of  anomaly,  have  never  wholly  lost  their  popular 
character.  The  parliamentary  system  at  the  time  we  are  con- 
sidering was  a  government  by  the  upper  classes  of  the  nation  ; 
those  classes  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree  political  capacity, 
and  although  public  spirit  had  sunk  very  low  among  them, 
it  was  by  no  means  extinguished.  Men  who  on  ordinary  occa- 
sions voted  through  party  or  personal  motives  rose  on  great 
emergencies  to  real  patriotism.  The  enthusiasm  and  the 
genius  of  the  country  aspired  in  a  great  degree  to  political 
life ;  and  large  boroughowners,  who  disposed  of  some  seats  for 
money  and  of  others  for  the  aggrandisement  of  their  families, 
were  accustomed  also,  through  mingled  motives  of  patriotism 
and  vanity,  to  bring  forward  young  men  of  character  and  promise. 
Even  if  they  restricted  their  patronage  to  their  sons  they  at 
least  provided  that  many  yoimg  men  should  be  in  the  House, 
and   they   thus  secured  the  materials  of   efficient  legislators. 


CH.  III.         CHARACTER  OF  THE  PARLIAMENT.         489 

Statesmanship  is  not  like  poetry,  or  some  of  the  other  forms  of 
higher  literature,  which  can  only  he  brought  to  perfection  by 
men  endowed  with  extraordinary  natural  genius.  The  art  of 
management,  whether  applied  to  public  business  or  to  assem- 
blies, lies  strictly  within  the  limits  of  education,  and  what  is 
required  is  much  less  transcendent  abilities  than  early  practice, 
tact,  courage,  good  temper,  courtesy,  and  industry.  In  the 
immense  majority  of  cases  the  function  of  statesmen  is  not 
creative,  and  its  excellence  lies  much  more  in  execution  than  in 
conception.  In  politics  possible  combinations  are  usually  few, 
and  the  course  that  should  be  pursued  is  sufficiently  obvious. 
It  is  the  management  of  details,  the  necessity  of  surmounting 
difficulties,  that  chiefly  taxes  the  abilities  of  statesmen,  and  these 
things  can  to  a  very  large  degree  be  acquired  by  practice.  The 
natural  capacities,  even  of  a  Walpole,  a  Palmerston,  or  a  Peel, 
were  far  short  of  prodigy  or  genius.  Imperfect  and  vicious  as 
was  the  system  of  parliamentary  government,  it  at  least  secmred 
a  school  of  statesmen  quite  competent  for  the  management 
of  affairs,  and  the  reign  of  corruption  among  them,  though  veiy 
threatening,  was  by  no  means  absolute.  Among  the  rich  who 
purchased  their  seats  there  were  always  some  few  who  were 
actuated  by  an  earnest  desire  to  benefit  their  country,  and  who, 
like  Romilly  and  Flood,  chose  this  way  of  entering  Parliament 
as  that  which  made  them  most  independent.  The  coimty 
representation  continued  tolerably  pure  ;  '  of  the  other  con- 
stituencies a  proportion,  though  a  small  proportion,  were 
really  free,  and  some  of  these,  through  tlie  operation  of  the 
scot  and  lot  franchise,  which  was  equivalent  to  household 
suffrage,  were  eminently  popular.  All  placemen  did  not 
always  vote  with  the  Government,  and  all  the  forms  of  cor- 
ruption did  not  act  in  the  same  direction.      There  was    not 

'  Chatham,  in  a  speech  which  he  great  cities  is  upon  a  footing  equally 

made  in  1770.  while  dwelling  strongly  respectable,  and  there  are  many  of 

on    the     corruption     of     the     small  the  larger  trading  towns  which  still 

borouo-hs,   added :    '  The  representa-  preserve  their  independence.' — Anec- 

tion  of  the  counties  is,  I  think,  still  dotes  of  Cliatham,  ii.  35. 
pure  and  uncorrupted,  that  of  the 


490  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  hi. 

much  public  spirit  exhibited,  but  there  was  always  some,  and 
there  was  much  of  that  spirit  of  moderation  and  compromise, 
that  aversion  to  raising  dangerous  questions  or  disturbing  old 
customs,  that  anxiety  not  to  strain  allegiance  or  abuse  strength, 
or  carry  political  conflicts  to  extremities,  which  has  almost 
always  characterised  English  politics,  and  which  Walpole  had 
done  more  than  any  other  single  man  to  sustain.  Besides  this, 
the  influence  of  the  House  of  Lords  and  a  network  of  old 
customs,  associations,  and  traditions  opposed  formidable  barriers 
to  precipitate  or  violent  action.  As  Burke  once  said  with  pro- 
found truth,  '  it  is  of  the  nature  of  a  constitution  so  formed  as 
ours,  however  clumsy  the  constituent  parts,  if  set  together  in 
action,  ultimately  to  act  well.' 

But  perhaps  the  most  important  guarantee  of  tolerable 
government  in  England  was  the  fear  of  the  Pretender.  During 
all  the  early  years  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  it  was  more  pro- 
bable than  otherwise  that  the  Stuarts  would  be  restored,  and  it 
was  only  by  carefully  and  constantly  abstaining  from  every  course 
that  could  arouse  violent  hostility  that  the  tottering  dynasty 
could  be  kept  upon  the  throne.  This  was  the  ever  present  check 
upon  the  despotism  of  majorities,  the  great  secret  of  the  deference 
of  Parliament  to  the  wishes  of  the  people.  The  conciliatory 
ministry  of  Walpole  turned  the  balance  of  probabilities  in 
favour  of  the  reigning  family,  but  the  danger  was  not  really 
averted  till  after  Culloden,  and  the  Jacobite  party  did  not  cease 
to  be  a  political  force  till  the  great  ministry  of  Pitt.  There 
were  persons  of  high  position — the  most  noted  being  the  Duke 
of  Beaufort — who  were  believed  every  year  to  send  large  sums 
to  the  Pretender.  Jacobite  cries  were  loud  and  frequent  during 
the  riots  that  followed  the  Bill  for  naturalising  Jews  in  1753. 
The  University  of  Oxford  was  still  profoundly  disaffected. 
Complaints  were  made  in  Parliament  in  1754  of  treasonable 
songs  sung  by  the  students  in  the  streets,  of  treasonable  prints 
sold  in  its  shops.'     Dr.  King,  whose  sentiments  were  not  doubt- 

'  "Walpole 's  Memoirs  of  George  IL,  i,  p.  413.     See,  too,  Smollett's   Hist. 
book  iii.  ch,  1. 


cu.  III.  DEFERENCE   TO   PUBLIC   OPINION.  491 

ful,  in  his  speech  on  opening  the  Katcliffe  Library  in  1754, 
introduced  three  times  the  word  '  redeat,'  pausing  each  time  for 
a  considerable  space  while  the  crowded  theatre  rang  with  ap- 
plause.i  As  late  as  1756,  when  Lord  Fitzmaurice  travelled 
through  Scotland,  he  observed  that  the  people  of  that  country 
were  still  generally  Jacobite.'^ 

Such  a  state  of  affairs  was  well  fitted  to  moderate  the 
violence  of  parties.  The  people  had  little  power  of  controlling 
or  directly  influencing  Parliament,  but  whenever  their  senti- 
ments were  strongly  expressed  on  any  particular  question,  either 
by  the  votes  of  the  free  constituencies  or  by  more  irregular  or 
tumultuous  means,  they  were  usually  listened  to,  and  on  the 
whole  obeyed.  The  explosions  of  public  indignation  about  the 
Sacheverell  case,  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  the  commercial  treaty 
with  France,  the  South  Sea  Bubble,  the  Spanish  outrages,  the 
Bill  for  naturalising  the  Jews,  the  Hanoverian  policy  of 
Carteret,  foolish  as  in  most  instances  tliey  were,  had  all  of  them, 
at  least,  a  great  and  immediate  effect  upon  the  policy  of  the 
country.  It  should  be  added  that  the  duties  of  Government 
were  in  some  respects  much  easier  than  at  present.  The  vast 
development  of  the  British  Empire  and  of  manufacturing 
industry,  the  extension  of  publicity,  and  the  growth  of  an 
inquiring  and  philanthropic  spirit  that  discerns  abuses  in  every 
quarter,  have  together  immeasurably  increased  both  the  range 
and  the  complexity  of  legislation.  In  the  early  Hanoverian 
period  the  number  of  questions  treated  was  very  small,  and 
few  subjects  were  much  attended  to  which  did  not  directly 
affect  party  interests. 

The  general  level  of  political  life  was,  however,  deplorably  low. 
Politics  under  Queen  Anne  centred  chiefly  round  the  favourites 
of  the  sovereign,  and  in  the  first  Hanoverian  reigns  the  most  im- 
portant influences  were  Court  intrigues  or  parliamentary  corrup- 
tion.    Bolingbroke  secured  his  return  from  exile  by  the  assist- 

'  Lord  Shelburne's  Life,  i.  p.  35.       Excise  riots.   Lord  Hervey's  Memoirs, 
See  too,  on  Oxford  disaffection  at  an      i.  205. 
earlier  period,  the  description  of  the  ^  Lord  Shelburne's  Life,  i.  p.  50. 


492  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  in. 

ance  of  the  Duchess  of  Kendal,  one  of  the  mistresses  of  George  I., 
whom  he  is  said  to  have  bribed  with  1 0,000^.  Carteret  at  first 
based  his  hopes  upon  the  same  support,  but  imagining  that  he 
had  met  with  coldness  or  infidelity  on  the  part  of  the  Duchess,  he 
transferred  his  allegiance  to  her  rival,  the  Countess  of  Platen.' 
On  the  death  of  George  I.  a  crowd  of  statesmen  and  writers — 
Chesterfield,  Pulteney,  Swift,  Bolingbroke,  and  Gay — were  at  the 
feet  of  Mrs.  Howard,  the  mistress  of  the  new  king.  A  curious 
letter  has  been  preserved,  in  which  Mrs.  Pitt,  the  mother  of  the 
great  Lord  Chatham,  endeavoured  by  a  bribe  of  1,000  guineas 
to  obtain  from  her,  for  her  brother,  the  position  of  Lord  of 
the  Bedchamber.2  Chesterfield,  towards  the  end  of  his 
career,  intrigued  against  Newcastle  with  the  Duchess  of  Yar- 
mouth; and  Pitt  himself  is  stated,  on  very  good  authority, 
to  have  secured  his  position  in  the  Cabinet  in  a  great  degree  by 
his  attentions  to  the  same  lady.^  The  power  of  Walpole  and 
Newcastle  rested  upon  a  different  but  hardly  upon  a  nobler  basis 
— upon  the  uniform  employment  of  all  the  patronage  of  the 
Crown,  and  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  public  money  at  their 
disposal,  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  a  parliamentary 
majority.  Weapons  we  should  now  regard  as  in  the  highest 
degree  dishonourable  were  freely  employed.  The  secrecy  of 
the  Post  Office  was  habitually  violated.  The  letters  of  Swift, 
Bolingbroke,  Marlborough,  and  Pope  are  full  of  complaints  of 
its  insecurity,  and  we  know  from  Walpole  himself  that  he  had 
no  scruple  in  opening  the  letters  of  a  political  rival.* 

'  Marchmont  Papers,  i.  3-5.  some  of  their  letters  and  found  them 

*  Suffolk  Correspondence,  i.  102.  full  of  this  language.  The  last  foreign 

*  See  the  very  remarkable  passages  mail  brought  a  letter  from  Count 
on  this  subject  in  Lord  Shelburne's  Staremberg  to  William  Pulteney, 
Autoiiography,  pp.  83-8i.  Mrs.  Mon-  giving  him  great  expectations  of  the 
tagu's  Letter's,  iv.  46.  materials  he  could  furnish  him  with, 

^  Writing    to    Lord    Townshend,  when  it  might  be  done  with  safety, 

Nov.  29, 1725,  Walpole  says  :    '  It  is  fit  and  very  strong  in  general  terms  upon 

you  should  likewise  be  acquainted  that  what  is  transacting  with  you.     Wise 

the  Pulteneys  build  great  hopes  upon  Daniel  fills  all  his  inland  correspond- 

the  difficulties  they  promise  them-  ence   with    reflections   of    the  same 

selves  will  arise    from  the  foreign  kind.' — Coxe's    Walpole,  ii.  492-493. 

affairs,  and  especially  from  the  Han-  See,  too,  Marchmont  Papers,  ii.  205, 

over  treaty.     I  had  a  curiosity  to  open  245,    248.     Coxe's    Marlborough,   ch. 


CH.  ni.  NEGLECT   OF  LITEEATURE.  493 

Of  these  facts  that  which  is  most  really  important  is  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Crown  patronage  and  secret  service  money  were 
disposed  of.  The  system  of  habitually  neglecting  the  moral 
and  intellectual  interests  of  the  country,  and  of  employing  the 
resources  of  the  Government  solely  with  a  view  to  strengthening 
political  influence,  was  chiefly  due  to  Walpole  and  Newcastle, 
and  it  was  one  which  had  very  wide  and  very  important  con- 
sequences. The  best  argument  that  has  ever  been  urged  in 
favour  of  leaving  at  the  disposal  of  the  Government  large  sums 
of  money  in  the  form  of  pensions,  sinecures,  and  secret  service 
money,  is  that  the  Government  is  the  trustee  of  the  nation,  and 
that  it  should  employ  at  least  a  portion  of  these  funds  in  en- 
couraging those  higher  forms  of  literature,  science,  or  art,  which 
are  of  the  greatest  value  to  mankind,  which  can  only  be 
attained  by  the  union  of  extraordinary  abilities  with  extraordi- 
nary labour,  and  which  are  at  the  same  time  of  such  a  nature 
that  they  produce  no  adequate  remuneration  for  those  wlio 
practise  them.  It  has  been  contended,  with  reason,  that  it  is 
neither  just  nor  politic  that  great  philosophers,  or  poets,  or  men 
of  science  should  be  driven  by  the  pressure  of  want  from  the 
fields  of  labour  to  which  their  genius  naturally  called  them,  or 
should  be  tempted  to  degrade  the  rarest  and  most  inestimable 
talents,  in  order  by  winning  popularity  to  obtain  a  livelihood, 
or  should  be  deprived,  when  pursuing  investigations  of  the 
highest  moment  to  mankind,  of  the  means  of  research  which  easy 
circumstances  can  furnish.  That  each  man  should  obtain  the 
due  and  proportionate  reward  of  his  services  to  the  community 
is  an  ideal  which  no  society  can  ever  attain,  but  towards  which 
every  society  in  a  healthy  condition  must  endeavour  to  approxi- 
mate ;  and  although  in  matters  of  material  production,  of  which 
common  men  are  good  judges,  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  may 
at  least  be  trusted  to  produce  the  requisite  article  in  sufficient 
quantity  and  of  tolerable  quality,  it  is  quite  otherwise  with  the 

xcvii.  c.     Chathara  Corregj)ondcnce,  i.  Postmaster  -  General    in   Brussels   to 

167-168.     Hwift's  Corresjjoudence.  open  and  send  him  copies  of  all  the 

In  1723  Walpole  even  succeeded  correspondence  of  Atterbury.    Coses 

in  making  an  arrangement  with  the  Walpole,  ii.  284. 


494  ENGLAND  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  ra. 

things  of  mind.  In  these  fields  reward  is  often  in  inverse  pro- 
portion to  merit,  and  many  of  the  qualities  that  are  of  the  most 
incontestable  value  have  a  direct  tendency  to  diminish  popularity. 
As  a  great  writer  has  truly  said  '  the  writings  by  which  one  can 
live  are  not  the  writings  which  themselves  live.'  To  infuse 
into  a  book  deep  thought  that  will  strain  the  attention  of  the 
reader,  to  defend  unpopular  opinions,  or  open  new  veins  of 
thought,  to  condense  into  a  small  space  the  reflections  and 
researches  of  a  lifetime,  to  grapple  with  subjects  that  involve 
subtle  distinctions  or  close  and  complicated  reasoning,  is  a 
course  plainly  contrary  to  the  pecuniary  interest  of  an  author. 
The  discoveries  and  the  books  which  have  proved  of  the  most 
enduring  value,  have  usually  at  first  been  only  appreciated  by  a 
very  few,  and  have  only  emerged  into  general  notoriety  after 
many  years  of  eclipse.  A  skilfv>l  writer  who  looks  only  to  the 
market,  will  speedily  perceive  that  the  taste  of  the  great  majority 
of  readers  is  an  uncultivated  one,  and  that  if  he  desires  to  be 
popular  he  must  labour  deliberately  to  gratify  it.  If  his  talent 
take  the  form  of  books  he  will  expand  his  thoughts  into  many 
brilliant,  gaudy,  and  superficial  volumes,  rapidly  written  and 
easily  read,  and,  remembering  that  most  men  read  only  for 
amusement,  he  will  avoid  every  subject  that  can  fatigue  atten- 
tion or  shock  prejudices,  and  especially  every  form  of  profound, 
minute,  and  laborious  investigation.  There  are  demagogues 
in  literature  as  well  as  in  politics.  There  is  a  degradation  of 
style  springing  from  a  thirst  for  popularity,  which  is  at  least  as 
bad  as  the  pedantry  of  scholars,  and  a  desire  to  conform  to 
middle-class  prejudices  may  produce  quite  as  real  a  servility  as 
the  patronage  of  aristocracies  or  of  courts.  The  inevitable 
result  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  if  left  without  restric- 
tion, is  either  to  degrade  or  destroy  both  literature  and  science, 
or  else  to  throw  them  exclusively  into  the  hands  of  those  who 
possess  private  means  of  subsistence.  This  is  not  a  matter  of 
speculation  or  of  controversy,  but  of  fact,  and  anyone  who  is 
even  moderately  acquainted  with  literary  or  scientific  biography 
may  abundantly  verify  it.     It  is  certain  that  the  higher  forms 


CH.  III.  THE  LAW  OF  SUPPLY   AND   DEMAND.  495 

of  literature  and  science  are  as  a  rule  unsupporting,  that  men  of 
extraordinary  abilities  have  spent  the  most  useful  and  laborious 
lives  in  these  pursuits  without  earning  the  barest  competence, 
that  many  of  the  most  splendid  works  of  genius  and  many  of 
the  most  fruitful  and  conscientious  researclies  are  due  to  men 
whose  lives  were  passed  between  the  garret  and  the  spunging 
house,  and  who  were  reduced  to  a  penury  sometimes  verging 
upon  starvation.  Neither  Bacon,  nor  Newton,  nor  Locke,  nor 
Descartes,  nor  Gibbon,  nor  Hume,  nor  Adam  Smith,  nor  Mon- 
tesquieu, nor  Berkeley,  nor  Butler,  nor  Coleridge,  nor  Bentham, 
nor  Milton,  nor  Wordsworth,  could  have  made  a  livelihood  by 
their  works,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  all,  or  nearly  all, 
writers  on  mathematics,  metaphysics,  political  economy,  archae- 
ology, and  physical  science  in  all  its  branches,  as  well  as  of  the 
great  majority  of  the  greatest  writers  in  other  fields.  Very  few 
of  those  men  whose  genius  has  irradiated  nations,  and  whose 
writings  have  become  the  eternal  heritage  of  mankind,  obtained 
from  their  works  the  income  of  a  successful  village  doctor  or 
provincial  attorney. 

In  truth,  the  fact  that  for  many  years  a  main  object  of 
English  politicians  has  been  to  abolish  the  foolish  restrictions 
by  which  commerce  was  hampered,  has  produced  among  large 
classes,  by  a  process  of  hasty  generalisation  which  is  very  fami- 
liar to  all  who  have  studied  the  history  of  opinions,  a  belief  in 
the  all-sufficiency  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  and  in 
the  uselessness  of  government  interference,  which  in  speculation 
is  one  of  the  most  superficial  of  fallacies,  and  in  practice  one 
of  the  most  deadly  of  errors.  Even  in  the  sphere  of  material 
things  this  optimist  notion  egregiously  fails.  No  portions  of 
modern  legislation  have  been  more  useful  or  indeed  more  in- 
dispensable than  the  Factory  Acts  and  the  many  restrictive 
laws  about  the  sale  of  poisons,  vaccination,  drainage,  rail- 
ways, or  adulteration,  and  few  men  who  observe  the  signs  of 
the  times  will  question  that  this  description  of  legislation 
must  one  day  be  greatly  extended.  But  in  other  spheres  of  the 
utmost  importance,  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  is  far  more 


496  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.iii. 

conspicuously  impotent.  Thus  education  in  its  simplest  form, 
which  is  one  of  the  first  and  highest  of  all  human  interests,  is  a 
matter  in  which  Grovernment  initiation  and  direction  are  impe- 
ratively required,  for  uninstructed  people  will  never  demand  it, 
and  to  appreciate  education  is  itself  a  consequence  of  education. 
Thus  the  higher  forms  of  literature  and  science  cannot  be  left 
to  the  unrestricted  law  of  supply  and  demand,  for  the  simple 
reason  that,  while  they  are  of  the  utmost  importance  to  mankind, 
most  of  their  professors  under  such  a  system  would  starve.  No 
reasonable  man  will  question  either  that  a  civilisation  is  muti- 
lated and  imperfect  in  which  a  considerable  number  of  men  of 
genius  do  not  devote  their  lives  to  these  subjects,  or  that  the 
world  owes  quite  as  much  to  its  writers  and  men  of  science  as 
it  does  to  its  statesmen,  its  generals,  or  its  lawyers.  No  reason- 
able man  who  remembers  on  the  one  hand  how  small  a  proportion 
of  mankind  possess  the  strong  natural  aptitude  which  produces 
the  highest  achievements  in  science  or  literature,  and  on  the 
other  hand  how  inestimable  and  enduring  are  the  benefits  they 
may  confer,  will  desire  that  the  cultivation  of  these  fields  should 
become  the  monopoly  of  the  rich.  To  evoke  the  latent  genius 
of  the  nation,  and  to  direct  it  to  the  spheres  in  which  it  is  most 
fitted  to  excel,  is  one  of  the  highest  ends  of  enlightened  states- 
manship. In  every  community  there  exists  a  vast  mass  of 
noble  capacity  hopelessly  crushed  by  adverse  circumstances,  or 
enabled  only  to  develop  in  a  tardy,  distorted,  and  imperfect 
manner.  Every  institution  or  system  that  enables  a  poor  man 
who  possesses  a  strong  natural  genius  for  science  or  literature, 
to  acquire  the  requisite  instruction,  and  to  develop  his  distinc- 
tive capabilities  instead  of  seeking  a  livelihood  as  a  second-rate 
lawyer  or  tradesman,  is  conferring  a  benefit  on  the  human  race. 
The  benefit  is  so  great  that  an  institution  is  justified  if  it 
occasionally  accomplishes  it,  even  though  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  it  proves  a  failure.  It  is,  no  doubt,  true  that  these 
unremunerative  pursuits  may  often  be  combined  with  more 
lucrative  employments,  but  only  where  such  employments  are 
congenial,  and  allow  an  unusual  leisure  for  thought  and  study, 


CH.  III.     MODES  OF  ENCOURAGING  INTELLECTUAL  PURSUITS.    497 

and  even  then  a  divided  allegiance  is  seldom  compatible  with 
the  highest  results.  It  is  also  true  that  men  of  great  natural 
powers  will  sometimes  follow  their  guiding  light  in  spite  of 
eveiy  obstacle.  The  martyrs  of  literature  who  pursued  their 
path  through  hopeless  poverty  to  ends  of  the  highest  value  to 
mankind,  have  been  scarcely  less  memorable  than  those  of 
religion.  But  apart  from  all  nobler  and  more  generous  consi- 
derations, it  is  not  for  the  benefit  of  society  that  these  fields  of 
laboiu:  should  be  cultivated  only  by  those  who  possess  a  far 
higher  amount  of  self-sacrifice  than  is  demanded  in  other 
spheres,  or  that  men  whose  influence  may  mould  the  characters 
of  succeeding  generations  should  exercise  that  influence,  with 
hearts  acidulated  and  perhaps  depraved  by  the  pains  of  poverty 
or  the  sense  of  wrong.  It  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  amount 
of  evil  in  the  world  which  has  sprung  from  vices  in  literature  that 
may  be  distinctly  traced  to  the  circumstances  of  the  author. 
Had  Rousseau  been  a  happy  and  a  prosperous  man,  the  whole 
history  of  modern  Europe  might  have  been  changed. 

A  curious  and  valuable  book  might  be  written  describing 
the  provisions  which  have  been  made  in  different  nations  and 
ages  for  the  support  of  these  unremunerative  forms  of  talent. 
In  Germany  at  the  present  day  the  immense  multiplication  of 
professorships  provides  a  natural  sphere  for  their  exertions  ;  but 
the  results  of  this  system  would  have  been  less  satisfactory  had 
not  the  general  simplicity  of  habits,  the  cheapness  of  living, 
and  the  low  standard  of  professional  remuneration  made  such 
a  life  hitherto  attractive  to  able  men.  In  England  several 
agencies  combine  directly  or  indirectly  to  the  same  end.  The 
vast  emoluments  of  the  Universities  enable  them  to  do  some- 
thing. In  the  eyes  of  a  superficial  economist  no  institution  will 
appear  more  indefensible  than  an  English  fellowship  to  which 
no  definite  duties  whatever  are  attached.  A  real  statesman  will 
probably  think  that  something,  at  least,  may  be  said  for  emolu- 
ments which,  won  by  severe  competition,  give  a  young  man  a 
subsistence  during  the  first  unproductive  years  of  a  profession, 
render  possible  for  him  lines  of  study  or  employment  from 
VOL.  I.  33 


498  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  m. 

which  he  would  otherwise  be  absolutely  excluded,  and  enable 
him,  if  he  desires  it,  during  some  of  the  best  years  of  his  life 
to  devote  his  undivided  energies  to  intellectual  labours.  The 
endowments,  whether  derived  from  public  or  private  sources, 
which  are  attached  to  scientific  careers,  at  least  furnish  the 
means  of  subsistence  to  some  men  who  are  engaged  in  studies 
of  the  most  transcendent  importance.  They  are,  however, 
miserably  inadequate,  and  this  inadequacy  diverts  from  scientific 
pursuits  many  who  are  admirably  fitted  to  follow  them,  compels 
many  others  to  turn  away  from  original  investigation,  and 
depresses  the  whole  subject  in  the  eyes  of  those  large  classes 
who  estimate  the  relative  importance  of  different  branches 
of  know^ledge  by  the  magnitude  of  the  emoluments  attached  to 
them.  Hardly  any  other  of  the  great  branches  of  human  know- 
ledge is  at  present  so  backward,  tentative,  and  empirical  as  medi- 
cine, and  there  is  not  much  doubt  that  the  law  of  supply  and  de- 
mand is  a  main  cause  of  the  defect.  Almost  all  the  finer  intel- 
lects which  are  devoted  to  this  subject  are  turned  away  from 
independent  investigations  to  the  lucrative  paths  of  professional 
practice ;  their  time  is  engrossed  with  cases  most  of  which  could 
be  treated  quite  as  well  by  men  of  inferior  capacity,  and  they  do 
little  or  nothing  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  our  knowledge.  For 
literature  of  the  graver  kinds  the  Church  provides  important, 
though  indirect  assistance.  In  many  country  parishes  the 
faithful  discharge  of  clerical  duties  is  quite  compatible  with 
the  life  of  a  scholar ;  and  the  valuable,  dignified,  and  almost 
sinecure  appointments  connected  with  the  Cathedrals  are  pecu- 
liarly suited  for  literary  rewards.  Solid  literary  attainments 
usually  lead  to  them,  and  to  the  tranquil  leisure  which  they 
secure  we  owe,  perhaps,  the  greater  number  of  those  noble 
monuments  of  learning  which  are  the  truest  glory  of  the  Angli- 
can Church. 

The  disadvantages  attaching  to  this  system  of  providing 
for  literature  by  ecclesiastical  appointments  are  sufficiently 
obvious.  Such  rewards  are  restricted  to  men  of  only  one  class 
of  opinions,  are  offered  for  proficiency  only  in  special  forms  of 


OH.  III.  CHURCH  PATRONAGE.  499 

literature,  and  have  a  direct  tendency  to  discourage  indepen- 
dence of  thought.  They  are  open  to  the  grave  objection  of 
constituting  a  gigantic  system  of  bribery  in  favour  of  a  certain 
class  of  opinions,  and  of  inducing  many  who  are  not  conscious 
hypocrites  to  stifle  their  doubts  and  act  falsely  with  their  intel- 
lects. To  the  poor,  ambitious,  and  unbelieving  scholar,  the 
Church  holds  out  prospects  of  the  most  seductive  nature,  and 
he  must  oft^n  hear  the  voice  of  the  tempter  murmuring  in  liis 
ear,  '  All  these  things  will  I  give  thee  if  thou  wilt  fall  down 
and  worship  me.'  But,  grave  as  are  these  disadvantages,  the 
literary  benefits  resulting  from  Church  sinecures,  in  my  judg- 
ment, outweigh  them,  and  they  will  continue  to  do  so  as  long 
as  the  Church  maintains  her  present  latitude  of  belief,  and  as 
long  as  a  considerable  proportion  of  able  men  can  conscien- 
tiously join  her  communion.  These  appointments  have,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  produced  many  works  of  great  and  sterling 
value,  which  would  never  have  been  written  without  them, 
and  which  are  of  great  benefit  to  men  of  all  classes  and 
opinions.  They  discharge  a  function  of  the  utmost  importance 
in  English  life,  for  they  form  the  principal  counterpoise  to  the 
great  prizes  attached  to  the  law  and  to  commerce,  which  would 
otherwise  divert  a  very  disproportionate  amount  of  the  talent 
of  the  community  into  these  channels.  They  are  especially 
valuable  as  encouraging  deep  research  and  considerable  literary 
enterprise  at  a  period  when,  imder  the  influence  of  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand,  literary  talent  is  passing,  to  a  most  excessive 
and  deplorable  degree,  into  ephemeral  or  purely  critical  writing. 
Apart  from  all  its  other  effects,  valuable  Church  patronage,  if 
judiciously  employed,  may  be  of  inestimable  intellectual  ad- 
vantage to  the  nation.  An  ingenious  man  may  easily  imagine 
institutions  that  would  confer  the  same  advantages  without  the 
attending  evils ;  but  ecclesiastical  appointments  exist ;  they 
actually  discharge  these  functions,  and  it  would  be  practically 
much  more  easy  to  destroy  than  to  replace  them.  Strong 
popular  enthusiasm  may  be  speedily  aroused  for  the  defence  or 
the  destruction  of  an  establishment,  but  considerations  such  as 


500  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  in. 

I  am  now  urging  are  of  too  refined  a  nature  ever  to  become 
popular.  They  are  never  likely  to  furnish  election  cries  or 
party  watchwords,  and  the  creation  of  lucrative  appointments, 
without  adequate  and  engrossing  duties  being  definitely  at- 
tached to  them,  is  too  much  opposed  to  all  democratic  notions 
to  be  in  our  day  a  possibility. 

Among  the  means  of  encouraging  the  higher  intellectual 
influences,  direct  Government  patronage  was  in  the  early  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century  conspicuous,  and  it  was  bestowed,  on 
the  whole,  with  much  disregard  of  party  considerations.  Whigs 
and  Tories  were  in  this  respect  about  equally  liberal,  the 
Whigs  Somers  and  Montague,  and  the  Tories  Harley  and  St. 
John  being,  perhaps,  the  ministers  to  whom  literature  owed 
most.  It  was  the  received  opinion  of  the  time  that  it  was  part 
of  the  duty  of  an  English  minister  to  encourage  the  develop- 
ment of  promising  talent,  and  that  a  certain  proportion  of  the 
places  and  pensions  at  his  disposal  should  be  applied  to  this 
purpose.  No  doubt,  this  system  was  sometimes  abused,  and 
sometimes  had  a  bad  efiect  vipon  the  character  of  the  recipient ; 
but  in  itself  it  implied  no  degradation.  Many  of  the  kinds  of 
labour  assisted  were  of  such  a  nature  as  to  leave  no  room  for 
sycophancy,  and  could  not  otherwise  have  been  carried  on,  and 
the  practical  results  were  in  general  eminently  beneficial.  The 
splendid  efflorescence  of  genius  under  Queen  Anne  was  in  a  very 
great  degree  due  to  ministerial  encouragement,  which  smoothed 
the  path  of  many  whose  names  and  writings  are  familiar  in 
countless  households,  where  the  statesmen  of  that  day  are  al- 
most forgotten.  Among  those  who  obtained  assistance  from 
the  Grovernment,  either  in  the  form  of  pensions,  appointments, 
or  professional  promotion,  were  Newton  and  Locke,  Addison, 
Swift,  Steele,  Prior,  Gray,  Eowe,  Congreve,  Tickell,  Parnell,  and 
Phillips,  while  a  secret  pension  was  offered  to  Pope,  who  was 
legally  disqualified  by  his  religion  from  receiving  Grovernment 
favours.  Upon  the  accession  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  how- 
ever, Governmental  encouragement  of  literature  almost  abso- 
lutely ceased.     It  is  somewhat  singular   that   the  son  of  the 


CH.  III.  SOCIAL  DEGRADATION  OF  LITERATUEE.  501 

Electress  Sophia,  wlio  bad  been  the  devoted  friend  of  Leibnitz, 
and  the  nephew  of  Elizabeth  of  Bavaria,  who  had  been  the 
most  ardent  disciple  of  Descartes,  should  have  proved  him- 
self, beyond  all  other  English  sovereigns,  indifferent  to  intel- 
lectual interests ;  but  George  I.  never  exhibited  any  trace  of 
the  qualities  that  had  made  his  mother  one  of  the  most  bril- 
liant, and  his  aunt  one  of  the  most  learned,  women  in  Europe. 
The  influence  of  Walpole  was  in  this  respect  still  more  fatal. 
Himself  wholly  destitute  of  literary  tastes,  he  was  altogether 
indifferent  to  this  portion  of  the  national  development,  and  he 
looked  upon  tlie  vast  patronage  at  his  disposal  merely  as  a 
means  of  Parliamentary  corruption,  of  aggrandising  his  own 
family,  or  of  providing  for  the  younger  sons  of  the  aristocracy. 
It  has  been  said  that  one  of  the  great  distinctions  between 
ancient  and  modern  political  theories  is,  that  in  the  one  the 
ends  proposed  were  chiefly  moral,  and  in  the  other  almost  ex- 
clusively material ;  and  this  last  description,  though  it  does  not 
apply  to  every  portion  of  English  history,  was  eminently  true 
of  the  reigns  of  G-eorge  I.  and  of  his  successor. 

It  can  never  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  a  country  what 
qualities  lead  naturally  to  social  eminence,  and  it  was  a 
necessary  consequence  of  this  neglect  of  literature  that  a  great 
change  passed  over  the  social  position  of  its  possessors.  For- 
merly high  intellectual  attainments  counted  in  society  for 
almost  as  much  as  rank  or  wealth.  Addison  had  been  made  a 
Secretary  of  State.  Prior  had  been  despatched  on  important 
embassies.  Swift  had  powerfully  influenced  the  policy  of  a 
ministry.  Steele  was  a  conspicuous  Member  of  Parliament. 
Gay  was  made  Secretary  to  the  English  ambassador  at  the  Court 
of  Hanover.  In  the  reign  of  the  first  two  Georges  all  this 
changed.  The  Government,  if  it  helped  any  authors,  helped 
only  those  who  would  employ  their  talents  in  the  lowest  forms 
of  party  libel,  and  even  then  on  the  most  penurious  scale.  The 
public  was  still  too  small  to  make  literature  remunerative.  The 
great  nobles,  who  took  their  tone  from  the  Court  and  G-overn- 
ment,  no  longer  patronised  it,  and  the  men  of  the  highest  genius 


502  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

or  of  the  greatest  learning  were  the  slaves  of  mercenary  book- 
sellers, wasted  the  greater  part  of  their  lives  in  the  most 
miserable  literary  drudgery,  lived  in  abject  poverty,  and  rarely 
came  in  contact  with  the  great,  except  in  the  character  of  sup- 
pliants. It  was  in  the  reign  of  George  I.  that  Steele,  struck 
down  by  the  ingratitude  of  the  party  he  had  so  faithfully 
served,  closed  a  career,  which  had  been  pre-eminently  useful  to 
his  country,  in  poverty  and  neglect;  that  Ockley  concluded  his 
'  History  of  the  Saracens '  in  a  debtor's  j)rison ;  that  Bingham 
composed  the  greater  part  of  his  invaluable  work  on  the 
'  Antiquities  of  the  Christian  Church '  in  such  necessity  that 
it  was  with  the  utmost  difficulty  he  could  obtain  the  books 
that  were  indispensable  to  his  task.  It  was  in  the  reign  of 
George  II.  that  Savage  used  to  wander  by  night  through  the 
streets  of  London  for  want  of  a  lodging,  that  Johnson  spent 
more  than  thirty  years  in  penury,  drudgery,  or  debt,  that 
Thomson  was  deprived  by  Lord  Hardwicke  of  the  small  place 
in  the  Court  of  Chancery  which  was  his  sole  means  of  subsist- 
ence, that  Smollett  was  compelled  to  degrade  his  noble 
genius  to  unworthy  political  libels,  and  at  last,  after  a  life 
which  was  one  long  struggle  for  bread,  died  in  utter  poverty  in 
a  foreign  land.  And  at  this  very  time  literature  in  the  neigh- 
bouring country  had  acquired  a  greater  social  influence  than  in 
any  other  period  of  recorded  history.  No  contrast,  indeed,  can 
be  more  complete  than  that  which  was  in  this  respect  presented 
by  England  and  France.  That  brilliant  French  society  which 
Eousseau^  and  so  many  others  have  painted,  was,  no  doubt,  in 
many  respects  corrupt,  frivolous,  and  chimerical,  but  it  had  at 
least  carried  the  art  of  intellectual  conversation  to  an  almost 
unexampled  perfection,  and  it  was  pervaded  and  dignified  by  a 
genuine  passion  and  enthusiasm  for  knowledge,  by  a  noble,  if 
delusive  confidence  in  the  power  of  intellect  to  regenerate  man- 
kind. This  intellectual  tone  was  wholly  wanting  in  society  in 
England.     Horace  Walpole,  who  reflected  very  faithfully  the 

*  Nouvelle    Helo'ise,    2me    partie.       French    society    at    this    period    iu 
See,   too,  the    admirable  sketch  of      Taine's  Ancien  Regime. 


cH.  III.  LIBERALITY   OF  THE  QUEEN.  603 

fa.shionable  spirit  of  his  time,  always  speaks  of  literary  pur- 
suits as  something  hardly  becoming  in  a  gentleman,  and  of 
such  men  as  Johnson  and  Smollett  as  if  they  were  utterly 
contemptible.  The  change  in  the  position  of  writers  was  at 
least  as  injurious  to  society  as  to  literature.  It  gave  it  a 
frivolous,  unintellectual,  and  material  tone  it  has  never  wholly 
lost.' 

We  must,  however,  make  an  exception  to  this  censure. 
The  influence  of  Queen  Caroline  in  patronage  was  for  many 
years  most  judiciously  exercised.  This  very  remarkable  woman, 
who  governed  her  husband  with  an  absolute  sway  in  spite  of 
his  infidelities,  and  who  often  exhibited  an  insight  into 
character,  a  force  of  expression,  and  a  political  judgment  worthy 
of  a  great  statesman,  was  the  firmest  of  all  the  friends  of  Wal- 
pole,  and  deserves  a  large  share  of  the  credit  which  is  given  to 
his  administration.  Slie  first  fully  reconciled  her  husband  to 
him.  She  supported  him  through  innumerable  intrigues,  and 
every  act  of  policy  was  determined  together  by  the  minister 
and  the  Queen  before  it  was  submitted  to  the  King.  Unlike 
Walpole,  however,  and  unlike  her  husband,  who  despised  every 
form  of  literature  and  art,  she  had  strong  intellectual  sympa- 
thies, which  she  sometimes  displayed  with  a  little  pedantry,  but 
which  on  the  whole  she  exercised  to  the  great  advantage  of  the 
community.    She  was  the  friend  and  correspondent  of  Leibnitz,^ 

'  Chesterfield    has    noticed    the  22,  1752. 
contrast  in   the   usual    conversation  So    another  writer  obsejcves,   '  A 

of  the  fashionable  circles  of  the  two  knowledge  of  books,  a  taste  in  arts,  a 

capitals.    '  It  must  be  owned  that  the  proficiency  in  science,  was  formerly 

polite  conversation  of  the  men  and  regarded  as  a  proper  qualification  in 

women   of   fashion  in  Paris,  though  a  man  of  fashion.  ...  It  will  not,  I 

not   always  very  deep,  is   much  less  presume,  be  regarded  as  any  kind  of 

futile  and  frivolous  than    ours  here.  satire  on  the  present  age  to  say  that 

It  turns  at  least  upon  some  subject,  among  the  higher  ranks  this  literary 

something   of   taste,   some   point   of  spirit  is  genprally  vanished.  Reading 

history,    criticism,   and  even  philo-  is  now  sunk  at  best  into  a  morning's 

sophy;    which,   though  probably  not  amusement.' — Browne's   Ultimate    of 

quite    so    solid   a:3   Mr.   Locke's,   is,  the  Tinws,  i.  41-42. 
however,  better  and  more  becoming  *  It    is    curious    how    extremely 

rational   beings    than   our  frivolous  badly  she  wrote  French.     Her  letters 

dissertations   upon    the    weatlier    or  are   so   misspelt  and  ungrammatical 

upon  whist.' — Letters  to  his  So »,  April  as  to  be   sometimes  nearly   unintel- 


504  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  in. 

and,  in  spite  of  the  ridicule  of  many  of  the  English  nobles,  the 
warm  and  steady  patron  of  Handel.  By  her  influence  the  poet 
Savage,  when  under  sentence  of  death,  received  his  pardon, 
the  Nonjuror  historian  Carte  was  recalled  from  exile,  the  Arian 
Whiston  was  assisted  by  a  pension.  Her  generosity  was  at  once 
wide  and  discriminating  and  singularly  unfettered  by  the  pre- 
judices of  her  time.  She  secured  for  the  Scotch  Jacobites  at 
Edinburgh  permission  to  worship  in  peace,  and  although  her  own 
views  were  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  their  theology  ^  she 
was  a  special  benefactress  of  the  persecuted  Catholics.  She  con- 
tributed largely  from  her  private  means  to  encourage  needy  talent, 
and  she  exercised  a  great  and  most  useful  influence  upon  Church 
patronage.  There  has  seldom  been  a  time  in  which  the  religious 
tone  was  lower  than  in  the  age  of  the  first  two  Georges,  but  it 
is  a  remarkable  fact  that  this  age  can  boast  of  the  two  greatest 
intellects  that  have  ever  adorned  the  Protestant  Episcopate. 
Butler  was  drawn  from  his  retirement  by  Caroline,  was  appointed 
chaplain  and  recommended  by  her  on  her  death-bed,  and  to  that 
recommendation  he  himself  attributed  his  subsequent  promotion. 
Berkeley  was  first  offered  a  bishopric  by  the  Queen,  but  being  at 
this  time  absorbed  by  his  famous  missionary  scheme  he  declined 
it.  She  tried  also  earnestly  and  repeatedly  to  induce  Clarke  to 
accept  a  seat  on  the  bench,  but  he  resolutely  refused,  declaring 
that  nothing  would  induce  him  again  to  subscribe  the  Articles. 
She  secured  the  promotion  of  Sherlock,  contrary  to  the  wish  of 

ligible,  and  she  always  chose  that  que  j'antan.' — Kemble's  State  Papers 
language  for  corresponding  with  and  Letters,  p.  532. 
Leibnitz.  The  following  specimen  '  She  had  refused  to  marry  the 
from  one  of  her  letters  to  Leibnitz  Archduke  Charles,  afterwards  Em- 
gives  an  idea  of  her  attainments  in  peror,  because  he  was  a  Catholic  and. 
two  languages  in  1715  :  '  Vous  aurais  she  could  not  change  her  faith.  Gay 
remarque  dans    le  raport  contre   le  wrote  of  her — 

dernier  minister    que    le    feu   Lord  ^j^^  p^^^^p  ^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^-^  vm^y^t  shake. 

Boulinbrouck    dit     que    les    f  rancois  She  scorned  an  empire  for  religion's  sake, 

sont  ausy   mechant    poette    que  les  ^^^  appears,  however,  to  have  had 
anglois  politicien.     Je  suis  pouftant  ^{^^^^  religious  feeling,  and  her 

fort  pour   ceu  de   cornelle     Racme,  j^j^^^  ^^  ^^^^^  subjects,  as  far  as 

beaulau,  Renie      II   se  pent  que  ne  ^^^  j^^^  ^^^^  ^^  a  latitudinariaa 

possitan  pas  sy  bien  la  langue  anglois  .  " ' 

que  la  franco ise    j 'admire    plus    se 


CH.  ni.  DECLINE  OF  PUBLIC  SPIRIT.  505 

Walpole.  She  favoured  the  promotion  of  Hoadly  and  of  Seeker, 
and  she  endeavoured  to  draw  the  saintly  Wilson  from  his  obscure 
diocese  in  the  Isle  of  Man  to  a  more  prominent  and  lucrative 
position,  but  he  answered  that '  he  would  not  in  his  old  age  desert 
his  wife  because  she  was  poor.'  On  the  death  of  the  Queen, 
however,  Church  patronage,  like  all  other  patronage,  degene- 
rated into  a  mere  matter  of  party  or  personal  interest.  It  was 
distributed  for  the  most  part  among  the  members  or  adherents 
of  the  great  families,  subject  to  the  conditions  that  the  candi- 
dates were  moderate  in  their  views  and  were  not  inclined  to 
any  description  of  reform.^ 

It  is  not  surprising  that  under  such  circumstances  the  spirit 
of  the  nation  should  have  sunk  very  low.  In  tlie  period  between 
the  Reformation  and  the  Revolution  England  had  been  convulsed 
by  some  of  the  strongest  passions  of  which  large  bodies  of  men 
are  susceptible.  The  religious  enthusiasm  that  accompanies 
great  changes  and  conflicts  of  dogmatic  belief,  the  enthu- 
siasm of  patriotism  elicited  by  a  deadly  contest  with  a  foreign 
enemy,  the  enthusiasm  of  liberty  struggling  with  despotism, 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  loyalty  struggling  with  innovation,  had 
been  the  animating  principles  of  large  bodies  of  Englishmen. 
Different  as  are  these  enthusiasms  in  their  nature  and  their 
objects,  various  as  are  the  minds  on  which  they  operate,  and 
great  as  are  in  some  cases  the  evils  that  accompany  their 
excess,  they  have  all  the  common  property  of  kindling  in 
large  bodies  of  men  an  heroic  self-sacrifice,  of  teaching  them 
to  subordinate  material  to  moral  ends,  and  of  thus  raising 
the  tone  of  political  life.  All  these  enthusiasms  had  now 
gradually  subsided,  while  the  philanthropic  and  reforming  spirit, 
which  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  in  a  great  degree  taken 

'  '  I  would  no  more  employ  a  man  them  who  was  always  haranguing 
to  govcBn  and  influence  the  clergj-,'  against  the  inconveniences  of  a  stand- 
said  Sir  R.  Walpole,  '  who  did  not  ing  army,  or  make  a  man  Chancellor 
flatter  the  parsons,  or  who  either  who  was  constantly  complaining  of 
talked,  wrote,  or  acted  against  their  the  grievances  of  the  Bar  and 
authority,  their  profits,  or  their  threatening  to  rectify  the  abuses  of 
privileges,  than  I  would  try  to  govern  Westminster  Hall.' — Lord  Hervey's 
the  soldiery  by  setting  a  general  over  Memoirs,  i.  pp.  453-454. 


506  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  m. 

their   place,  was   almost   absolutely   unfelt.     With    a  Church 
teaching   a  cold  and  colourless  morality  and  habitually  dis- 
covuraging  every  exhibition  of  zeal,  with  a  dynasty  accepted  as 
necessary  to  the  country,  but  essentially  foreign  in  its  origin, 
its  character,  and  its  sympathies,  with  a  Government  mild  and 
tolerant,  indeed,  but  selfish,  corrupt,  and  hostile  to  reform,  the 
nation  gradually  sank  into  a  condition   of  selfish  apathy.     In 
very  few  periods  was  there  so   little  religious   zeal,  or  active 
loyalty,  or  public  spirit.     A  kindred  tone  pervaded  the  higher 
branches  of  intellect.     The  philosophy  of  Locke,  deriving  our 
ideas  mainly  if   not    exclusively    from   external    sources,  was 
supreme  among  the  stronger  minds.     In  literature,  in  art,  in 
speculation  the  imagination  was  repressed;    strong    passions, 
elevated  motives,  and   sublime  aspirations   were   replaced    by 
critical   accuracy  of  thought  and  observation,  by  a  measured 
and  fastidious  beauty  of  form,  by  clearness,  symmetry,  sobriety, 
and  good  sense.     We  find  this  alike  in  the  prose  of  Addison,  in 
the  poetry  of   Pope,  and  in  the  philosophy  of  Hume.     The 
greatest  wit  and  the  most  original  genius  of  the   age  was  also 
the  most  intensely  and  the  most  coarsely  realistic.     The  greatest 
English  painter  of  the  timedevotedhimself  mainly  to  caricature. 
The  architects  could  see  nothing  but  barbarous  deformity  in  the 
Gothic  cathedral,  and  their  own  works  had  touched  the  very 
nadir  of  taste.     The  long  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession  failed 
signally  to  arouse  the  energies  of  the  nation.     It  involved  no 
great  principle  that  could  touch  the  deeper  chords  of  national 
feeling.     It  was  carried  on  chiefly  by  means  of  subsidies.     It 
was  one  of  the  most  ill  directed,  ill  executed,  and  unsuccessful 
that  England  had  ever  waged,  and  the  people,  who  saw  Hano- 
verian influence  in  every  campaign,  looked  with  an  ominous 
supineness  upon  its  vicissitudes.     Good  judges  spoke  with  great 
despondency  of  the  decline  of  public  spirit  as  if  the  energy  of 
the  people  had  been  fatally  impaired.     Their  attitude  during 
the  rebellion  of  1745  was  justly  regarded  as  extremely  alarm- 
ing.    It  appeared  as  if  all    interest  in  those  great  questions 
which  had  convulsed  England   in  the  time  of  the  Common- 


CH.  in.  DECLINE   OF   PUBLIC   SPIRIT.  507 

wealth  and  of  the  Kevolution,  had  died  away— as  if  even 
the  old  courage  of  the  nation  was  extinct.  Nothing  can 
be  more  significant  than  the  language  of  contemporary  states- 
men on  the  subject.  '  I  appreliend,'  wrote  old  Horace  Walpole 
when  the  news  of  the  arrival  of  the  Pretender  was  issued,  '  that 
the  people  may  perhaps  look  on  and  cry  "  Fight  dog !  fight 
bear  I "  if  they  do  no  worse.'  '  England,'  wrote  Henry  Fox, 
*  Wade  says,  and  I  believe,  is  for  the  first  comer,  and  if  you 
can  tell  whether  the  6,000  Dutch  and  ten  battalions  of  Eng- 
lish, or  5,000  French  and  Spaniards  will  be  here  first,  you  know 
our  fate.'  'The  French  are  not  come — God  be  thanked !  But 
had  5,000  landed  in  any  part  of  this  island  a  week  ago,  I  verily 
believe  the  entire  conquest  of  it  would  not  have  cost  them  a 
battle.' '  Alderman  Heathcote,  writing  to  the  Earl  of  March- 
mont  in  September  1745,  and  describing  the  condition  of  the 
countr}',  no  doubt  indicated  very  truly  the  causes  of  the  decline. 
'Your  Lordship  will  do  me  the  justice,'  he  writes,  'to  believe 
that  it  is  with  the  utmost  concern  I  have  observed  a  remarkable 
change  in  the  dispositions  of  the  people  within  these  two  years ; 
for  numbers  of  them,  who,  during  the  apprehensions  of  the  last  in- 
vasion, appeared  most  zealous  for  the  Government,  are  now  grown 
absolutely  cold  and  indifferent,  so  that  except  in  the  persons  in 
the  pay  of  the  Government  and  a  few  Dissenters,  there  is  not  the 
least  appearance  of  apprehension  or  concern  to  be  met  with. 
As  an  evidence  of  this  truth,  your  Lordship  may  observe  the 
little  influence  an  actual  insurrection  has  had  on  the  public 
funds ;  and  unless  some  speedy  stop  be  put  to  this  universal 
coldness  by  satisfying  the  demands  of  the  nation  and  suppressing 
by  proper  laws  that  parliamentary  prostitution  which  has 
destroyed  our  armies,  our  fleets,  and  our  constitution,  I  greatly 
fear  the  event.'  ^  The  Government  looked  upon  the  attitude  of 
the  people  simply  as  furnishing  an  argument  for  increasing  the 
standing  army,  but  the  fact  itself  they  admitted  as  freely  as  their 
opponents.      'When  the  late  rebellion  broke  out,'  says  Lord 

»  Campbell's   Lives  of  the  CJian-       ii.  65  (note). 
ocffor.«,vi.  236-238.  Walpole 's  Zertcr*,  *  Marchmont  Papers,  ii.  M2-M%. 


508  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iu. 

Hardwicke  in  17-49,  '  I  believe  most  men  were  convinced  that  if 
the  rebels  had  succeeded.  Popery  as  well  as  slavery  would  have 
been  the  certain  consequence,  and  yet  what  a  faint  resistance  did 
tlie  people  make  in  any  part  of  the  kingdom  I — so  faint  that  had 
we  not  been  so  lucky  as  to  procure  a  number  of  regular  troops 
from  abroad  time  enough  to  oppose  their  approach,  they  might 
have  got  possession  of  our  capital  without  any  opposition  except 
from  the  few  soldiers  we  had  in  London.'  ^ 

These  statements  are  very  remarkable,  and  they  are  especi- 
ally so  because  the  apathy  that  was  shown  was  not  due  to  any 
sympathy  with  the  Pretender.  The  disgraceful  terror  which 
seized  London  when  the  news  of  the  Jacobite  march  upon  Derby 
arrived  was  a  sufl&cient  evidence  of  the  fact.  '  In  every  place  we 
passed  through,'  wrote  the  Jacobite  historian  of  the  rebellion, 
'  we  found  the  English  veiy  ill-disposed  towards  us,  except  at 
Manchester.  .  .  .  The  English  peasants  were  hostile  towards  us 
in  the  highest  degree.'  ^  When  a  prisoner  who  was  for  a  time  be- 
lieved to  be  the  Yo^mg  Pretender  was  brought  to  London,  it  was 
with  the  utmost  difficulty  that  his  escort  could  conduct  him  to  the 
Tower  through  a  savage  mob,  who  desired  to  tear  him  limb  from 
iimb.^  Even  in  Manchester,  the  day  of  thanksgiving  for  the 
suppression  of  the  rebellion  was  celebrated  by  the  populace,  who 
insulted  the  nearest  relatives  of  those  who  had  perished  on  the 
gallows,  and  compelled  them  to  subscribe  to  the  illuminations. 
In  Liverpool  a  Eoman  Catholic  chapel  was  burnt,  and  all  who 
were  supposed  to  be  guilty  of  Jacobite  tendencies  were  in  serious 
danger.*  Nor  did  the  executions  which  followed  the  suppression 
of  the  movement  excite  any  general  compassion.  '  Popularity,' 
wrote  Horace  Walpole  at  this  time,  '  has  changed  sides  since 
the  year  '15,  for  now  the  city  and  the  generality  are  very  angry 
that  so  many  rebels  have  been  pardoned.'  ^ 

The  impression  which  this  indifference  to  public  interests 

'  Campbell's   Lives  of  the  Clian-  9,  1745. 

cellars,  vi.  256-257.  *  Picton's  Memorial  of  Liverpool,!. 

2  Johnstone's  Memoirs  of  the  He-  *  Walpole's     Letters     to    Mann, 

bellion,  pp.  70,  81.  August  12,  J7i6, 

*  WaJpole's  Letters  to  Mann,  Dec. 


CH.  III.  BROW^'E'S  '  ESTIMATE.'  509 

produced  in  the  minds  of  many  observers  was  well  expressed  in 
a  work  which  appeared  in  1757  and  1758.     Browne's  '  Estimate 
of  the  Manners  and  Principles  of  the  Times '  is  now  hardly 
remembered  except  by  brief  and  disparaging  notices  in  one  of 
the  later  writings  of  Burke  and   in  one  of  the  'Essays'  of 
Macaulay  ;  but  it  had  once  a  wide  popularity  and  a  consider- 
able influence  on  public  opinion.     Its  author  was  a  clergyman 
well  known  in  the  history  of  ethics  by  his  answer  to  Shaftesbury, 
which  contains  one  of  tlie  ablest  defences  in  English  literature 
of  the  utilitarian  theory  of  morals.     His  object   was  to  warn 
the  country  of  the  utter  ruin  that  must  ensue  from  a  decadence 
of  the  national  spirit,  which  he  maintained  was  only  too  mani- 
fest, and  which  he  attributed  mainly  to  an  excessive  develop- 
ment of  the  commercial  spirit.     He  fully  admits  that  constitu- 
tional liberty  had  been  considerably  enlarged,  that  a  spirit  of 
growing  humanity  was  exhibited  both  in  manners  and  in  laws ; 
that  the  administration  of  justice  was  generally  pure,  and  that 
the  age  was  not  characterised  by  gross  or  profligate  vice.     Its 
leading  quality  was  '  a  vain,  luxurious,  and  selfish  effeminacy,' 
which  was  rapidly  corroding  all  the  elements  of  the  national 
strength.    '  Love  of  our  country,'  he  complained,  '  is  no  longer 
felt,  and  except  in  a  few  minds  of  uncommon  greatness,  the 
principle   of  public  spirit   exists  not.'       He  appealed  to  the 
disuse  of  manly  occupations  among  the  higher  classes,  to  their 
general  indifference  to  religious  doctrines  and  neglect  of  re- 
ligious   practices,  to   the    ever-widening  circle  of   corruption 
which  had  now  passed  from  the  Parliament  to  the  constituen- 
cies, and  tainted  all  the  approaches  of  public  life  ;  to  the  pre- 
vailing system  of  filling  the  most  important  offices  in  the  most 
critical  times  by  family  interest,  and  without  any  regard  to 
merit  or  to  knowledge.     The  extent  of  this  evil,  he  maintained, 
was  but  too  plainly  shown  in  the  contrast  between  the  splendid 
victories  of  Marlborough  and  the  almost  uniform  failure  of  the 
British  arms  in  the  late  war,  in  the  want  of  fire,  energy,  and 
heroism  manifested  in  all  public  affairs,  and,  above  all,  in  the 
conduct    of  the  nation    during  the   rebellion,  'when  those  of 


510      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,     en.  in. 

every  rank  above  a  constable,  instead  of  arming  tbemselves  and 
encouraging  the  people,  generally  fled  before  the  rebels ;  while 
a  mob  of  ragged  Highlanders  marched  unmolested  to  the  heart 
of  a  populous  kingdom.'  He  argued  with  much  acuteness  that 
the  essential  qualities  of  national  greatness  are  moral,  and  that 
no  increase  of  material  resources  could  compensate  for  the  deterio- 
ration which  had  in  this  respect  passed  over  the  English  people. 
It  is,  perhaps,  difl&cult  for  us,  who  judge  these  predictions  in 
the  light  which  is  furnished  by  the  Methodist  revival,  and  by 
the  splendours  of  the  administration  of  Chatham,  to  do  full 
justice  to  their  author.  He  appears  to  have  been  constitution- 
ally a  very  desponding  man,  and  he  ended  his  life  by  suicide. 
The  shadows  of  his  picture  are  undoubtedly  overcharged,  and 
the  marked  revival  of  public  spirit  in  the  succeeding  reign, 
when  commerce  was  far  more  extended  than  under  G-eorge  II., 
proves  conclusively  that  he  had  formed  a  very  erroneous  esti- 
mate of  the  influence  of  the  commercial  spirit.  Yet  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  disease,  though  it  might  still  be  arrested,  was  a 
real  one,  and  its  causes,  as  we  have  seen,  are  not  difficult  to 
trace.  There  was,  undoubtedly,  less  of  gross  and  open  profli- 
gacy than  in  the  evil  days  of  the  Eestoration,  and  less  of  de- 
liberate and  organised  treachery  among  statesmen  than  in  the 
years  that  immediately  followed  the  Eevolution.  The  fault  of 
the  time  was  not  so  much  the  amount  of  vice  as  the  defect  of 
virtue,  the  general  depression  of  motives,  the  unusual  absence 
of  unselfish  and  disinterested  action.  At  the  same  time,  though 
there  had  been  a  certain  suspension  of  the  moral  influences  that 
had  formerly  acted  upon  English  society,  the  conditions  of  that 
society  were  at  bottom  sound,  and  contrasted  in  most  respects 
favourably  with  those  of  the  greatest  nations  on  the  Continent. 
In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  peasants  of  Ger- 
many were  uniformly  serfs,  and  the  peasantry  of  France,  though 
freed  from  the  most  oppressive,  were  still  subject  to  some  of 
the  most  irritating  of  feudal  burdens,  while  in  both  countries 
political  liberty  was  unknown,  and  in  France,  at  least,  religious 
and  intellectual  freedom  were  perpetually  violated.     In  France, 


CH.  III.     COMPAKISON  BETWEEN  ENGLAND  AND  CONTINENT.      51  I 

too,  that  fatal  division  of  classes  which  has  been  the  parent  of 
most  subsequent  disasters,  was  already  accomplished.  The 
selfish  infatuation  of  the  Court  which  desired  to  attract  to  itself 
all  that  was  splendid  in  the  community,  the  growing  centralisa- 
tion of  government,  the  want  in  the  upper  classes  of  all  taste 
for  country  sports  and  duties,  and  the  increasing  attraction  of 
town  life,  had  led  the  richer  classes  almost  invariably  to  abandon 
their  estates  for  the  pleasures  of  the  capital,  where,  in  the 
absence  of  healthy  political  life,  they  lost  all  sympathy  with 
their  fellow-countrymen,  and  speedily  degenerated  into  hypo- 
crites or  profligates.  Their  tenants,  on  the  other  hand,  de- 
prived of  the  softening  influence  of  contact  with  their  superiors, 
reduced  to  penury  by  grinding  and  unequal  taxation,  and  finding 
in  the  village  priest  their  only  type  of  civilisation,  sank  into 
that  precise  condition  which  transforms  some  men  into  the 
most  implacable  revolutionists,  and  others  into  the  most  super- 
stitious of  bigots.  But  in  England  nothing  of  this  kind  took 
place.  The  mixture  of  classes,  on  which  English  liberty  and 
the  perfection  of  the  English  type  so  largely  depends,  still  con- 
tinued. The  country  gentlemen  were  actively  employed  upon 
their  estates,  administering  a  rude  justice,  coming  into  constant 
and  intimate  connection  with  their  tenants,  and  acquiring  in  the 
duties,  associations,  and  even  sports  of  a  country  life,  elements 
of  a  practical  political  knowledge  more  valuable  than  any  that 
can  be  acquired  in  books.  Habits  of  hard  and  honest  industry, 
a  respect  for  domestic  life,  unflinching  personal  courage,  were 
still  general  through  the  middle  classes  and  among  the  poor, 
and  if  the  last  was  suspected  during  the  rebellion,  it  was  at 
least  abundantly  displayed  by  the  British  infantry  at  Dettingen 
and  Fontenoy.  While  all  these  subsisted,  there  remained  ele- 
ments of  greatness  which  might  easily,  under  favourable  cir- 
cumstances, be  fanned  into  a  flame. 

It  must  be  added,  too,  that  the  qualities  most  needed  for  the 
success  of  constitutional  government,  are  not  the  highest,  but 
what  may  be  called  the  middle  virtues  of  character  and  intellect. 
Heroic  self-sacrifice,  brilliant  genius,  a  lofty  level  of  generosity. 


512  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH -CENTUEY.  ch.  iii. 

intelligence,  or  morality,  a  clear  perception  of  the  connection 
and  logical  tendency  of  principles,  have  all,  no  doubt,  their  places 
under  this  as  under  other  forms  of  government ;  but  it  is  upon 
the  wide  diffusion  of  quite  a  different  category  of  qualities  or 
attainments  that  the  permanence  of  constitutional  government 
mainly  depends.  Patience,  moderation,  persevering  energy,  the 
spii-it  of  compromise,  a  tolerance  of  difference  of  opinions,  a 
general  interest  in  public  affairs,  sound  sense,  love  of  order,  a 
disposition  to  judge  measures  by  actual  working  and  not  by  any 
ideal  theory,  a  love  of  practical  improvement,  and  a  great  dis- 
trust of  speculative  politics,  a  dislike  to  change  as  change,  com- 
bined with  a  readiness  to  recognise  necessities  when  they  arise, 
are  the  qualities  which  must  be  generally  diffused  through  a 
community  before  free  institutions  can  take  firm  root  among 
them.  Judged  by  these  tests  the  period  we  are  considering 
exhibited,  no  doubt,  in  several  respects  a  great  decadence  and 
deficiency,  but  not  so  great  as  if  we  measured  it  by  a  more  ideal 
standard,  and  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  in  no  other  great 
nation  were  these  qualities  at  this  time  so  commonly  exhibited. 

A  very  similar  judgment  may  be  passed  upon  the  system  of 
government.  It  was  corrupt,  inefficient,  and  unheroic,  but  it 
was  free  from  the  gross  vices  of  Continental  administrations  ;  it 
was  moderate,  tolerant,  and  economical ;  it  was,  with  all  its 
faults,  a  free  government,  and  it  contained  in  itself  the  elements 
of  reformation. 

I  have  examined  in  a  former  chapter  the  theory  according 
to  which  the  rival  English  parties  have  exchanged  their  prin- 
ciples since  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  I 
have  endeavoured  to  show  that  it  is  substantially  erroneous, 
that  the  historic  identity  of  each  party  may  be  clearly  estab- 
lished, whether  we  consider  the  classes  of  interests  it  repre- 
sented, or  the  leading  principles  of  its  policy.  We  are  now, 
however,  in  a  position  to  see  more  clearly  the  facts  which  have 
given  that  theory  its  plausibility.  The  ministries  of  Walpole 
and  Pelham  represented  especially  the  commercial  classes  and 
the  Dissenters,  aimed  beyond  all  things  at  the  maintenance  of 


CH.  HI.  CONFUSION   OF  PAKTY  PKINCIPLES.  5 1  3 

the  type  of  monarchy  established  by  the  Revolution,  and  leaned 
almost  uniformly  towards  those  principles  of  religious  liberty 
which  the  Tory  party  detested ;  but  undisputed  power  had  made 
them  corrupt,  selfish,  and  apathetic,  and  they  sought,  both  in 
their  own  interest  and  in  that  of  the  dynasty,  to  check  every 
reform  that  could  either  abridge  their  power  or  arouse  strong 
passions  in  the  nation.  They  also  made  it  a  great  end  of  their 
policy  to  humour  and  conciliate  to  the  utmost  the  country 
gentry,  who  were  the  natural  opponents  of  their  party.  Though 
not  Tory,  they  were  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  Conservative, 
Governments ;  that  is  to  say.  Governments  of  which  the  su- 
preme object  and  preoccupation  was  not  the  realisation  of  any 
unattained  political  ideal,  or  the  redressing  of  any  political 
grievances,  but  merely  the  maintenance  of  existing  institutions 
against  all  assailants.  The  lines  of  party  division  were  blurred 
and  confused,  and  while  only  those  who  called  themselves  Whigs 
were  in  general  admitted  to  power,  many  were  ranked  in  that 
category  who,  in  a  time  of  keener  party  struggles,  would  have 
been  enrolled  among  the  Tories.  The  characteristics  of  the 
two  great  parties  have  varied  much  with  different  circimistances. 
The  idiosyncrasies  of  leaders  whose  attachment  to  their  re- 
spective parties  was  often  in  the  first  instance  due  to  the  mere 
accident  of  birth  or  of  position,  the  calm  or  louring  aspect  of 
foreign  affairs,  the  dominant  passion  of  the  nation,  the  question 
whether  a  party  is  in  office  or  in  opposition,  whether  if  in 
power  its  position  is  precarious  or  secure,  and  if  in  opposition 
it  is  likely  soon  to  incur  the  responsibilities  of  office,  have  all 
their  great  influence  on  party  politics.  Still  there  is  a  real 
natural  history  of  parties,  and  the  division  corresponds  roughly 
to" certain  broad  distinctions  of  mind  and  character  that  never 
can  be  effaced.  The  distinctions  between  content  and  hope, 
between  caution  and  confidence,  between  the  imagination  that 
throws  a  halo  of  reverent  association  around  the  past  and  that 
which  opens  out  brilliant  vistas  of  improvement  in  the  future, 
between  the  mind  that  perceives  most  clearly  the  advantages 
of. existing  institutions  and  the  possible  dangers  of  change  and 
VOL.  I.  34 


514  ■    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

that  which  sees  most  keenly  the  defects  of  existing  institutions 
and  the  vast  additions  that  may  be  made  to  human  well-being, 
form  in  all  large  classes  of  men  opposite  biases  which  find  their 
expression  in  party  divisions.  The  one  side  rests  chiefly  on  the 
great  tmth  that  one  of  the  first  conditions  of  good  government 
is  essential  stability,  and  on  the  extreme  danger  of  a  nation 
cutting  itself  off  from  the  traditions  of  its  past,  denuding  its 
government  of  all  moral  support,  and  perpetually  tampering 
with  the  main  pillars  of  the  State.  The  other  side  rests  chiefly 
upon  the  no  less  certain  truths  that  Grovemmenb  is  an  organic 
thing,  that  it  must  be  capable  of  growing,  expanding,  and 
adapting  itself  to  new  conditions  of  thought  or  of  society; 
that  it  is  subject  to  grave  diseases,  which  can  only  be  arrested 
by  a  constant  vigilance,  and  that  its  attributes  and  functions 
are  susceptible  of  almost  infinite  variety  and  extension  with 
the  new  and  various  developments  of  national  life.  The  one 
side  represents  the  statical,  the  other  the  dynamical  element  in 
politics.  Each  can  claim  for  itself  a  natural  affinity  to  some  of 
the  highest  qualities  of  mind  and  character,  and  each,  perhaps, 
owes  quite  as  much  of  its  strength  to  mental  and  moral  disease. 
Stupidity  is  naturally  Tory.  The  large  classes  wlio  are  blindly 
wedded  to  routine,  and  are  simply  incapable  of  understanding 
or  appreciating  new  ideas,  or  the  exigencies  of  changed  circum- 
stances, or  the  conditions  of  a  reformed  society,  find  their 
natural  place  in  the  Tory  ranks.  Folly,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
naturally  liberal.  To  this  side  belongs  the  cast  of  mind  which, 
having  no  sense  of  the  infinite  complexity  and  interdependence 
of  political  problems,  of  the  part  which  habit,  association,  and 
tradition  play  in  every  healthy  political  organism,  and  of  the 
multifarious  remote  and  indirect  consequences  of  every  insti- 
tution, is  prepared  with  a  light  heart  and  a  reckless  hand  to 
recast  the  whole  framework  of  the  constitution .  in  the  interest 
of  speculation  or  experiment.  The  colossal  weight  of  national 
selfishness  gravitates  naturally  to  Toryism.  That  party  rallies 
round  its  banner  the  great  multitude  who,  having  made  their 
position,  desire  merely  to  keep  things  as  they  are,  who  are  pre- 


CH.  HI.  Wflia  AND  TOEY.  515 

pared  to  subordinate  their  whole  policy  to  the  maintenance  of 
class  privileges,  who  look  with  cold  hearts  and  apathetic  minds 
on  the  vast  mass  of  remediable  misery  and  injustice  around 
them,  who  have  never  made  a  serious  effort,  or  perhaps  con- 
ceived a  serious  desire,  to  leave  the  world  in  any  respect  a 
better  place  than  they  found  it.  Even  in  the  case  of  reforms 
which  have  no  natural  connection  with  party  politics,  and 
which,  by  diverting  attention  from  other  changes,  would  be 
eminently  beneficial  to  the  Tories,  that  party  is  usually  less 
efficient  than  its  rival,  because  its  leaders  are  paralysed  by  the 
atmosphere  of  selfishness  pervading  their  ranks,  and  because 
most  of  the  reforming  and  energetic  intellects  are  ranged  among 
their  opponents.  On  the  other  hand,  the  acrid  humours  and 
more  turbulent  passions  of  society  flow  strongly  in  the  liberal 
direction.  Envy,  which  hates  every  privilege  or  dignity  it  does 
not  share,  is  intensely  democratic,  and  disordered  ambitions 
and  dishonest  adventurers  find  their  natural  place  in  the  party 
of  progress  and  of  change. 

The  Whig  Governments,  from  the  accession  of  George  I.  to 
the  death  of  Henry  Pelham,  only  exhibited  in  a  very  subdued 
and  diluted  form  both  the  virtues  and  the  vices  of  liberalism  ; 
and  though  this  period  is  very  important  in  the  history  of 
English  politics,  its  importance  lies  much  more  in  the  silent 
and  almost  insensible  growth  of  Parliamentary  government  than 
in  distinct  remedial  measures.  The  measures  of  reform  that 
were  actually  passed  were  usually  such  as  were  almost  impera- 
tively demanded  by  critical  circumstances,  or  by  the  growth  of 
some  great  evil  in  the  nation.  Some  of  them  were  of  great 
importance.  The  rebellion  of  1745  made  it  absolutely  necessary 
.to  put  an  end  to  the  anarchy  of  the  Highlands,  and  to  the 
almost  complete  independence  which  enabled  the  Highland 
chief  to  defy  the  law,  and  to  rally  around  him  in  a  few  days, 
and  in  any  cause,  a  considerable  body  of  armed  men.  The  Acts 
for  the  abolition  of  hereditary  jurisdictions,  for  disarming  the 
Highlanders,  and  for  depriving  them  of  their  national  dress^ 
were  carried  with  this  object,  and  the  first,  which  made  the 


516      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  m. 

English  law  supreme  throughout  the  island,  has,  as  we  shall 
see  in  another  chapter,  proved  one  of  the  most  important 
measures  in  Scotch  history,  the  chief  cause  of  the  rapid  progress 
of  Scotland  in  wealth  and  civilisation. 

Another  measure  of  the  Pelham  ministry  was  intended  to 
check  a  still  graver  evil  than  Highland  anarchy.     The  habit 
of  gin-drinking— the  master  curse  of  English   life,  to  which 
most  of  the  crime  and  an  immense  proportion  of  the  misery  of 
the  nation  may  be  ascribed— if  it  did  not  absolutely  originate, 
at  least  became  for  the  first  time  a  national  vice,  in  the  early 
Hanoverian  period.    Drunkenness,  it  is  true,  had  long  been  com- 
mon, though  Camden  maintained  that  in  his  day  it  was  still  a 
recent  vice,  that  there  had  been  a  time  when  the  English  were 
'of  all  the  Northern  nations  the  most  commended  for  their 
sobriety,'   and  that  'they   first  learnt   in   their    wars   in   the 
Netherlands  to  drown  themselves  with  immoderate  drinking.' ' 
The  Dutch  and  German  origin  of  many  drinking  terms  lends 
some  colour  to  this  assertion,  and  it  is  corroborated  by  other 
evidence.    Superfluity  of  drink,'  wrote  Tom  Nash  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  'is  a  sin  that  ever  since  we  have  mixed  ourselves 
with  the  Low  Countries  is  counted  honourable  ;  but,  before  we 
knew  their  lingering  wars,  was  held  in  the  highest  degree  of 
hatred  that  might  be.'     '  As  the  English,'  said  Chamberlayne, 
*  returning  from  the  wars  in  the  Holy  Land  brought  home  the 
foul  disease  of  leprosy.  ...  so  in  our  fathers'  days  the  English 
returning  from  the  service  in  the  Netherlands  brought   with 
them  the  foul  vice  of  drunkenness.'     But  the  evil,  if  it  was  not 
indigenous  in  England,^  at  least  spread  very  rapidly  and  very 
widely.     '  In  England,'  said  lago,  '  they  are  most   potent  in 
potting.     Your   Dane,   your   German,    and    your   swag-bellied 
Hollander  are  nothing  to  your  English.'  ^     '  We  seem,'  wrote  a 
somewhat  rhetorical  writer  in  1657,  '  to  be  steeped  in  liquors, 

^  Qa.-mdiQ\i!&  Hist,  of  Elizabeth,  i^.Ji.  Literature;     Di-inUng     Customs    in 

1581.  England ;     and    Malcolm's    Mannci-g 

2  See  the  early  history  of  English  and  Customs  of  London,  i.  pp.  285-289. 
drinking,  in  Disraeli's  Curiosities  of  *  Othello,  act  ii.  scene  3. 


CE.  III.  HISTORY  OF  DRUNKENNESS.  517 

or  to  be  the  dizzy  island.  We  drink  as  if  we  were  nothing  but 
sponges  ...  or  had  tunnels  in  our  mouths.  .  .  .  We  are  the 
grape-suckers  of  the  earth.'*  The  dissipated  habits  of  the 
Restoration,  and  especially  the  growing  custom  of  drinking 
toasts,  greatly  increased  the  evil,  but  it  was  noticed  that  the 
introduction  of  coffee,  which  spread  widely  through  England 
in  the  last  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  had  a  perceptible  in- 
fluence in  diminishing  it,'^  and  among  the  upper  classes  drunken- 
ness was,  perhaps,  never  quite  so  general  as  between  the  time  of 
Elizabeth  and  the  Revolution.  French  wines  were  the  favourite 
drink,  but  the  war  of  the  Revolution  for  a  time  almost  excluded 
them,  and  the  Methuen  Treaty  of  1703,  which  admitted  the 
wines  of  Portugal  at  a  duty  of  one-third  less  than  those  of 
France,  gradually  produced  a  complete  change  in  the  national 
taste.  This  change  was,  however,  not  fully  accomplished  for 
nearly  a  centiuy,  and  it  was  remarked  that  in  the  reign  of  Anne 
the  desire  to  obtain  French  wines  at  a  reasonable  rate  greatly 
strengthened  the  opposition  to  Marlborough  and  the  war.^ 
The  amount  of  hard  drinking  among  the  upper  classes  was  still 
very  great,  and  it  is  remarkable  how  many  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous characters  were  addicted  to  it.  Addison,  the  foremost 
moralist  of  his  time,  was  not  free  from  it.^  Oxford,  whose 
private  character  ^\as  in  most  respects  singularly  liigh,  is  said 
to  have  come,  not  unfrequently,  drunk  into  the  very  presence  of 
the  Queen.^  Bolingbroke,  when  in  office,  sat  up  whole  nights 
drinking,  and  in  the  morning,  having  bound  a  wet  napkin 
round  his  forehead  and  his  eyes,  to  drive  away  the  effects  of  his 
intemperance,  hastened,  without  sleep,  to  his  official  business.^ 

'  Reeve's     'Plea     for    Nineveh,'  See,  too,  on   the    history  of  French 

quoted   in    JIalcolm's   Manners    and  wines,  Craik's  /iis^.  of  Commerce,  ii. 

Customs  of  London,  i.  p.  28!5.  165,166,180,181.     Davenant's  i?e/;ffr< 

*  Chamberlayne.  See,  too,  a  curious  to  the  Commissioners  for  Stating  the 

testimony  on  this  subject  quoted  in  Public  Accoimts. 

Jesse's  London,  iii.  250.  *  Spence.  Swift's  Correspondence. 

'  Cunningham's  IJi^.,  ii.  pp.  200-  *  E.  Lewis  to  Swift. 

201.     Dr.    Radcliffe   is  said  to  have  *  Mrs.   Delany's     Correspondence, 

ascribed  much  of  the  sickness  of  the  vi.  168. 
time  to  the  want  of   French  wines. 


518  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  in.. 

Wbeii  Walpole  was  a  young  man  his  father  was  accustomed 
to  pour  into  his  glass  a  double  portion  of  wine,  saying, 
'  Come,  Eobert,  you  shall  drink  twice  while  I  drink  once ;  for  I 
will  not  permit  the  son  in  his  sober  senses  to  be  witness  of 
the  intoxication  of  his  father.'  This  education  produced  its 
natural  fruits,  and  the  entertainments  of  the  minister  at 
Houghton  were  the  scandal  of  his  county,  and  often  drove  Lord 
Townshend  from  his  neighbouring  seat  of  Eainham.^  The 
brilliant  intellect  of  Carteret  was  clouded  by  di-ink,^  and  even 
Pulteney,  who  appears  in  his  later  years  to  have  had  stronger 
religious  convictions  than  any  other  politician  of  his  time,  is 
said  to  have  shortened  his  life  by  the  same  means.^ 

Among  the  poor,  however,  in  the  beginning  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  the  popular  beverage  was  still  beer  or  ale,  the 
use  of  which — especially  before  the  art  of  noxious  adulteration 
was  brought  to  its  present  perfection — has  always  been  more 
common  than  the  abuse.  The  consumption  appears  to  have 
been  amazing.  It  was  computed  in  1688  that  no  less  than 
12,400,000  barrels  were  brewed  in  England  in  a  single  year, 
though  the  entire  population  probably  little  exceeded  5,000,000. 
In  1695,  with  a  somewhat  heavier  excise  it  sank  to  11,350,000 
barrels,  but  even  then  almost  a  third  part  of  the  arable  land  of 
the  kingdom  was  devoted  to  barley.'*  Under  Charles  I.  a  com- 
pany was  formed  with  the  sole  right  of  making  spirits  and 
vinegar  in  the  cities  of  London  and  Westminster  and  within 
twenty- one  miles  of  the  same,  but  this  measure  had  little  fruit ; 
the  British  distilleries  up  to  the  time  of  the  Eevolution  were 
quite  inconsiderable  and  the  brandies  which  were  imported  in 
large  quantities  from  France,  were  much  too  expensive  to  become 

'  Coxe's  Walpole,  i.  5,  758,  759.  and  many  of  the  inhabitants  were 

'  Chesterfield's  Cliaracters.  forced  to  retire  to  the  country,  no  less 

*  '  Speaker  Onslow's  Remarks  than  1,522,781  barrels  of  beer  and  ale 
(Coxe's  Walpole,  vol.  ii.  p.  559).  were  brewed    in   the   city,    each  of 

*  Gregory  King's  State  of  England,  them  containing  from  32  to  36  gallons, 
pp.  55-56.  In  an  edition  of  Chamber-  that  the  amount  brewed  annually  in 
layne's  Magnce  Britannice  Notitia,  London  had  since  risen  to  near  two 
published  in  1710,  it  is  stated  that  million  of  barrels,  and  that  the  excise 
in  1667,  when  the  greater  part  of  for  London  was  farmed  out  for 
London  was  in  ashes  after  the  fire,  120,000/.  a  year  (p.  219). 


CH.  HI.  INCREASE   OF  DRUNKENNESS.  519 

popular.  Partly,  however,  througli  hostility  to  France,  and 
partly  in  order  to  encourage  the  home  distilleries,  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Revolution,  iu  1689,  absolutely  prohibited  the  im- 
portation of  spirits  from  all  foreign  countries,^  and  threw  open 
the  trade  of  distillery,  on  the  payment  of  certain  duties,  to  all 
its  subjects.^  These  measures  laid  the  foundation  of  the  great 
extension  of  the  Englisli  manufacture  of  spirits,  but  it  was 
not  till  about  1724  that  the  passion  for  gin-drinking  appears 
to  have  infected  the  masses  of  the  population,  and  it  spread 
with  the  rapidity  and  the  violence  of  an  epidemic.  Small 
as  is  the  place  which  this  fact  occupies  in  English  his- 
tory, it  was  probably,  if  we  consider  all  the  consequences  that 
have  flowed  from  it,  the  most  momentous  in  that  of  the 
eighteenth  century — incomparably  more  so  than  any  event  in 
the  purely  political  or  military  annals  of  the  country.  The 
fatal  passion  for  drink  was  at  once,  and  irrevocably,  planted  in 
the  nation.  The  average  of  British  spirits  distilled,  which  is 
said  to  have  been  only  527,000  gallons  in  1684,  and  2,000,000 
in  1714,  had  risen  in  1727  to  .3,601,000,  and  in  1735  to 
5,394,000  gallons.  Physicians  declared  that  in  excessive  gin- 
drinking  a  new  and  terrible  source  of  mortality  had  been 
opened  for  the  poor.  The  grand  jury  of  Middlesex,  in  a  power- 
ful presentment,  declared  that  much  the  gi-eater  part  of  the 
poverty,  the  murders,  the  robberies  of  London,  might  be  traced 
to  this  single  cause.  Eetailers  of  gin  were  accustomed  to  hang 
out  painted  boards  announcing  that  their  customers  could  be 
made  drunk  for  a  penny,  and  dead  drunk  for  twopence,  and 
should  have  straw  for  nothing ;  and  cellars  strewn  with 
straw  were  accordingly  provided,  into  which  those  who  had 
become  insensible  were  dragged,  and  where  they  remained  till 
they  had  sufficiently  recovered  to  renew  their  orgies.  The  evil 
acquired  such  frightful  dimensions  that  even  the  unreforming 
Parliament  of  Walpole  perceived  the  necessity  of  taking  strong 
measures  to  arrest  it,  and  in  1736  Sir  J.  Jekyll  brought  in  and 

•  Pa/rl.  Hist.,  xii.  1212.  pherson's   Annals    of    Commerce,    ii. 

«  Ibid.,     xii.     1211-1214.      Mac-       639. 


520  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  in. 

carried  a  measure,  to  which  Walpole  reluctantly  assented, 
imposing  a  duty  of  208.  a  gallon  on  all  spirituous  liquors,  and 
prohibiting  any  person  from  selling  them  in  less  quantities  than 
two  gallons  without  paying  a  tax  of  50^.  a  year.^  Such  a  scale, 
if  it  could  have  been  maintained,  would  have  almost  amounted 
to  prohibition,  but  the  passion  for  these  liquors  was  now  too 
widely  spread  to  be  arrested  by  law.  Violent  riots  ensued. 
In  1737,  it  is  true,  the  consumption  sank  to  about  3,600,000 
gallons,  but,  as  Walpole  had  predicted,  a  clandestine  retail 
trade  soon  sprang  up,  which  being  at  once  very  lucrative  and 
very  popular,  increased  to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  found 
impossible  to  restrain  it.  In  1742,  more  than  7,000,000 
gallons  were  distilled,  and  the  consumption  was  steadily  aug- 
menting. The  measure  of  1736  being  plainly  inoperative,  an 
attempt  was  made  in  1743  to  suppress  the  clandestine  trade, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  increase  the  public  revenue  by  a  Bill 
lowering  the  duty  on  most  kinds  of  spirits  to  Id.  in  the  gallon, 
levied  at  the  still-head,  and  at  the  same  time  reducing  the  price 
of  retail  licences  from  50/.  to  20s.^  The  Bill  was  carried  in  spite 
of  the  strenuous  opposition  of  Chesterfield,  Lord  Hervey,  and  the 
whole  bench  of  Bishops ,  and,  while  it  did  nothing  to  discourage 
drunkenness,  it  appears  to  have  had  little  or  no  effect  upon 
smuggling.  In  1749  more  than  4,000  persons  were  convicted 
of  selling  spirituous  liquors  without  a  licence,  and  the  number 
of  the  private  gin-shops,  within  the  Bills  of  Mortality,  was 
estimated  at  more  than  17,000.  At  the  same  time  crime  and 
immorality  of  every  description  were  rapidly  increasing.  The 
City  of  London  urgently  petitioned  for  new  measures  of  restric- 
tion. The  London  physicians  stated  in  1750  that  there  were, 
in  or  about  the  metropolis,  no  less  than  14,000  cases  of  illness, 
most  of  them  beyond  the  reach  of  medicine,  directly  attributable 
to  gin.  Fielding,  in  his  well-known  pamphlet  '  On  the  late 
Increase  of  Eobbers,'  which  was  published  in  1751,  ascribed  that 
evil,  in  a  great  degree  '  to  a  new  kind  of  drunkenness,  unknown 
to  our  ancestors  ;'  he  declared  that  gin  was '  the  principal  susten- 
»  9  Geo.  11.  c.  23.  '  16  Geo,  n.  c  8. 


CH.  HI.  LICENSING  ACTS.  621 

ance  (if  it  may  so  be  called)  of  more  than  100,000  people  in 
the  metropolis,'  and  he  predicted  that,  '  should  the  drinking  of 
this  poison  be  continued  at  its  present  height  during  the  next 
twenty  years,  there  will,  by  that  time,  be  very  few  of  the 
common  people  left  to  drink  it.'  It  was  computed  that,  in 
1750  and  1751,  more  than  11  millions  of  gallons  of  spirits  were 
annually  consumed,  and  the  increase  of  population,  especially 
in  London,  appears  to  have  been  perceptibly  checked.  Bishop 
Benson,  in  a  letter  written  from  London  a  little  later,  said 
'  there  is  not  only  no  safety  of  living  in  this  town,  but  scarcely 
any  in  the  country  now,  robbery  and  murther  are  grown  so  fre- 
quent. Our  people  are  now  become  what  they  never  before 
were,  cruel  and  inhuman.  Those  accursed  spirituous  liquors, 
which,  to  the  shame  of  our  Government,  are  so  easily  to  be  had, 
and  in  such  quantities  drunk,  have  changed  the  very  nature  of 
our  people ;  and  they  will,  if  continued  to  be  drunk,  destroy  the 
very  race  of  people  themselves.'* 

In  1751,  however,  some  new  and  stringent  measures  were 
carried  under  the  Pelham  ministry,  which  had  a  real  and  very 
considerable  eflfect.  Distillers  were  prohibited  under  a  penalty  of 
lOL  from  either  retailing  spirituous  liquors  themselves,  or.  selling 
them  to  unlicensed  retailers.  Debts  contracted  for  liquors  not 
amounting  to  twenty  shillings  at  a  time  were  made  irrecover- 
able by  law.  Retail  licences  were  conceded  only  to  \0l.  house- 
holders within  the  Bills  of  Mortality,  and  to  traders  who  were 
subject  to  certain  parochial  rates  without  them,  and  the  penal- 
ties for  unlicensed  retailing  were  greatly  increased.  For  the 
second  offence  the  clandestine  dealer  was  liable  to  three  months' 
imprisonment  and  to  whipping  ;  for  the  third  otfence  he  incurred 
the  penalty  of  transportation.-  Two  years  later  another  useful 
law  was  carried  restricting  the  liberty  of  magistrates  in  issuing 
licences,  and  subjecting  public-houses  to  severe  regulations.^ 
Though  much  less  ambitious  than  the  Act  of  1 736  these  measures 
were  far  more  efficacious,  and  they  form  a  striking  instance  of 

'  Fraser's  Life    of  Berkeley,   pp.  -  24  Geo.  II.  c.  40. 

332-333.  '  26  Geo.  U.  c.  13. 


522      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     ch.  in- 

the  manner  in  which  legislation,  if  not  over-strained  or  ill-timed, 
can  improve  the  morals  of  a  people.  Among  other  consequences 
of  the  Acts  it  may  be  observed  that  dropsy,  which  had  risen  in 
London  to  a  wholly  unprecedented  point  between  1718  and 
1751,  immediately  diminished,  and  the  diminution  was  ascribed 
by  physicians  to  the  marked  decrease  of  drunkenness  in  the 
community.^  Still  these  measures  formed  a  palliation  and  not 
a  cure,  and  from  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  gin- 
drinking  has  never  ceased  to  be  the  main  counteracting  influ- 
ence to  the  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical  benefits  that  might 
be  expected  from  increased  commercial  prosperity.  Of  all  the 
pictures  of  Hogarth  none  are  more  impressive  than  those  in 
which  he  represents  the  different  conditions  of  a  people  whose 
national  beverage  is  beer  and  of  a  people  who  are  addicted 
to  gin,  and  the  contrast  exhibit.-^  in  its  most  imfavourable  aspect 
the  difference  between  the  Hanoverian  period  and  that  which 
preceded  it.' 

Something  also  was  done  to  secure  the  maintenance  of  order, 
but  there  was  still  very  much  to  be  desired.  The  impunity 
with  which  outrages  were  committed  in  the  ill-lit  and  ill- 
guarded  streets  of  London  during  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  can  now  hardly  be  realised.  In  1712  a  club  of  young 
men  of  the  higher  classes,  who  assumed  the  name  of  Mohocks, 
were  accustomed  nightly  to  sally  out  drunk  into  the  streets  to 
hunt  the  passers-by  and  to  subject  them  in  mere  wantonness 
to  the  most  atrocious  outrages.  One  of  their  favourite  amuse- 
ments, called  '  tipping  the  lion,'  was  to  squeeze  the  nose  of 
their  victim  flat  upon  his  face  and  to  bore  out  his  eyes  with 
their  fingers.  Among  them  were  the  '  sweaters,'  who  formed  a 
circle  round  their  prisoner  and  pricked  him  with  their  swords 
till  he  sank  exhausted  to  the  ground,  the  '  dancing  masters,'  so 

'  Heberden,  Ohseii-ations    on   the  kind  in  England,  p.  21.     Coxe's  Life 

Increase  and   Decrease   of  Different  of  Pelham,  ii.  182.     Maty's   Life  of 

Diseases  (1801)  p.  45.  Chesterfield,  p.  209.  Walpole's  George 

^  See  on  this  subject  the  Gentle-  II.  i.  66-67.     Smollett's  Hist.  Field- 

man's Magazine, 11  ol,T^^.Y6&,2%2-2%i,  ins's     Increase    of    Roibeis.     Pari, 

321, 322 ;  1760,  pp.  18-22.  Short's  JKsf.  Delates, 
of  the  Increase  and  Decrease  of  Man- 


en.  III.  INSECUKITY  OF  THE  STREETS.  523 

called  from  their  skill  in  making  men  caper  by  thi'usting  swords 
into  their  legs,  the  '  tumblers,'  whose  favourite  amusement  was 
to  set  women  on  their  heads  and  commit  various  indecencie? 
and  barbarities  on  the  limbs  that  were  exposed.  Maid  servants 
as  they  opened  their  masters'  doors  were  waylaid,  beaten,  and 
their  faces  cut.  Matrons  inclosed  in  barrels  were  rolled  down  the 
steep  and  stony  incline  of  Snow  Hill.  Watchmen  were  unmerci- 
fully beaten  and  their  noses  slit.  Country  gentlemen  went  to  the 
theatre  as  if  in  time  of  war,  accompanied  by  their  armed 
retainers.  A  bishop's  son  was  said  to  be  one  of  the  gang,  and  a 
baronet  was  among  those  who  were  arrested.^  This  atrocious 
fashion  passed  away,  but  other,  though  comparatively  harmless, 
rioters  were  long  accustomed  to  beat  the  watch,  to  break  the 
citizens'  windows,  and  to  insult  the  passers-by,  while  robberies 
multiplied  to  a  fearful  extent.  Long  after  the  Revolution,  the 
policy  of  the  Government  was  to  rely  mainly  upon  informers 
for  the  repression  of  crime,  but  the  large  rewards  that  were 
offered  were  in  a  great  degree  neutralised  by  tlie  popular  feel- 
ing against  the  class.  The  watchmen  or  constables  were  as  a 
rule  utterly  inefficient,  were  to  be  found  much  more  frequently 
in  beer-shops  than  in  the  streets,  and  were  often  themselves  a 
serious  danger  to  the  community.  Fielding,  who  knew  them 
well,  has  left  a  graphic  description  of  one  class.  '  They  were 
chosen  out  of  those  poor  decrepit  people  who  are,  from  their 
want  of  bodily  strength,  rendered  incapable  of  getting  a  livelihood 
by  work.  These  men,  armed  only  with  a  pole,  which  some  of 
them  are  scarcely  able  to  lift,  are  to  secure  the  persons  and 
houses  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  from  the  attacks  of  gangs  of 
young,  bold,  desperate,  and  well-armed  villains.  If  the  poor 
old  fellows  should  run  away,  no  one,  I  think,  can  wonder,  unless 
it  be  that  they  were  able  to  make  their  escape.' ^  Of  others  an 
opinion  may  be  formed  from  an  incident  related  by  Horace 
Walpole  in  1742.  '  A  parcel  of  drunken  constables  took  it 
into  their  heads  to  put  the  laws  in  execution  against  disorderly 

'  Swift's  Journal  to  Stella.    Gay's  Trivia.     Tlie  Spectator,  324,  335,  347. 
*  Amelia,  bk.  i.  ch.  2. 


524  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

persons,  and  so  took  up  every  woman  they  met,  till  they  had 
collected  five  or  six  and  twenty,  all  of  whom  they  thrust  into  St. 
Martin's  roundhouse,  where  they  kept  them  all  night,  with  doors 
and  windows  closed.  The  poor  creatures,  who  could  not  stir  or 
breathe,  screamed  as  long  as  they  had  any  breath  left,  begging 
at  least  for  water  .  .  but  in  vain.  .  .  In  the  morning  four 
were  found  stifled  to  death,  two  died  soon  after,  and  a  dozen 
more  are  in  a  shocking  way.  .  .  .  Several  of  them  were  beggars, 
who  from  having  no  lodging  were  necessarily  found  in  the 
street,  and  others  honest,  labouring  women.  One  of  the  dead 
was  a  poor  washerwoman,  big  with  child,  who  was  retiring  home 
late  from  washing.  One  of  the  constables  is  taken,  and  others 
absconded;  but  I  question  if  anyof  them  will  suffer  death, 
though  the  greatest  criminals  in  this  town  are  the  officers  of 
justice;  there  is  no  tyranny  they  do  not  exercise,  no  villany  of 
which  they  do  not  partake."  The  magistrates  were  in  many 
cases  not  only  notoriously  ignorant  and  inefficient,  but  also  what 
was  termed  '  trading  justices,'  men  of  whom  Fielding  said  that 
'  they  were  never  indifferent  in  a  cause  but  when  they  could  get 
nothing  on  either  side.'  ^  The  daring  and  the  number  of  robbers 
increased  till  London  hardly  resembled  a  civilised  town. 
'Thieves  and  robbers,'  said  Smollett,  speaking  of  1730,  'were 
now  become  more  desperate  and  savage  than  they  had  ever 
appeared  since  mankind  were  civilised.' ^  The  Mayor  and  alder- 
men of  London  in  1744  drew  up  an  address  to  the  King,  in 
which  they  stated  that '  divers  confederacies  of  great  numbers 
of  evil-disposed  persons,  armed  with  bludgeons,  pistols,  cutlasses, 
and  other  dangerous  weapons,  infest  not  only  the  private  lanes 
and  passages,  but  likewise  the  public  streets  and  places  of  usual 
concourse,  and  commit  most  daring  outrages  upon  the  persons  of 
your  Majesty's  good  subjects  whose  aflfairs  oblige  them  to  pass 
through  the  streets,  by  robbing  and  wounding  them,  and  these 

'  To  Sir  H.  Mann,  July,  1742.  Life  of  FieUing,   pp.   236-239,  and 

^  See    his    picture     of     Justice  Harris's  lAfe  of  Hardwicke,  i.  390- 

Thrasher,  in  Amelia,  and  his   sketch  391. 

of   Justice  Squeezum,  in  The  Coffee-  '  Hi^.  of  England. 

hvuse  Politician.    See,  too,  Lawrence's 


CH.  III.  INSECUEITY   OF    THE  STREETS,  525 

acts  are  frequently  perpetrated  at  such  times  as  were  heretofore 
deemed  hours  of  security.'  *  The  same  complaints  were  echoed 
in  the  same  year  in  the  '  Proposals  of  the  Justices  of  the  Peace 
for  Suppressing  Street  Robberies,'  and  the  magistrates  who  drew 
them  up  specially  noticed,  and  ascribed  to  the  use  of  spirituous 
liquors  '  the  cruelties  which  are  now  exercised  on  the  persons 
robbed,  which  before  the  excessive  use  of  these  liquors  were  un- 
known in  this  nation.'^  They  recommended  an  extension  of  the 
system  of  rewards,  the  suppression  or  restriction  of  gaming- 
houses, public  gardens,  fairs,  and  gin-shops,  and  also  measures 
for  systematically  drafting  into  the  army  and  navy  suspected 
and  dangerous  persons  against  whom  no  positive  crime  could 
be  proved. 

The  evil,  however,  appears  to  have  continued.  '  One  is  forced 
to  travel,'  wrote  Horace  Walpole  in  1751,  'even  at  noon  as  if 
one  were  going  to  battle.'  ^  The  punisliments  were  atrocious 
and  atrociously  executed,  but  they  fell  chiefly  on  the  more 
insignificant  and  inexperienced  offenders.  On  a  single  morning 
no  less  than  seventeen  persons  were  executed  in  London.* 
One  gang  of  robbers  in  1753  kept  the  whole  city  in  alarm 
from  the  number  and  skill  of  their  robberies  and  the  savage 
wounds  they  inflicted  on  their  victims.  A  recompense  of  lOOZ. 
was  offered  for  the  apprehension  of  each  of  them,  but  its  chief 
effect  was  to  encourage  men  who  deliberately  decoyed  poor  and 
unwary  wretches  into  robbery  in  order  that  by  informing  against 
them  they  might  obtain  the  reward.^  The  more  experienced 
robbers  for  a  time  completely  overawed  the  authorities.  '  Officers 
of  justice,'  wrote  Fielding,  'have  owned  to  me  that  they  have 
passed  by  such,  with  warrants  in  their  pockets  against  them 
without  daring  to  apprehend  them  ;  and,  indeed,  they  could  not 
be  blamed  for  not  exposing  themselves  to  sure  destruction  ;  for  it 
is  a  melancholy  truth  that  at  this  very  day  a  rogue  no  sooner 

'  Andrews'  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  *  To   Sir  H.    Mann.      March  23, 

230.  1752. 

*  Harris's  Life  of  Hardwiche,  ii.  *  Sir  John  Fielding's  Account  of 

97-99.  the  origin  and  effects  of  a  police  set  on 

»  To  Sir  H.  Mann.  March  23, 1752.  foot  in  1753. 


526  ENQLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ui. 

gives  the  alarm  within  certain  purlieus  than  twenty  or  thirty 
armed  villains  are  found  ready  to  come  to  his  assistance.' i 
When  the  eighteenth  century  had  far  advanced,  robbers  for 
whose  apprehension  large  rewards  were  offered,  have  been  known 
to  ride  publicly  and  unmolested,  before  dusk,  in  the  streets  of 
London,  surrounded  by  their  armed  adherents,  through  the 
midst  of  a  half-terrified,  half-curious  crowd .2 

This  state  of  things  was  very  alarming,  and  the  evil  was 
apparently  growing,  though  some  real  measures  had  been 
taken  to  improve  the  security  of  London.  One  very  important 
step  in  this  direction  was  accomplished  under  George  I.  The 
districts  of  Whitefriars  and  the  Savoy  had  for  centuries  the 
privilege  of  sheltering  debtors  against  their  creditors,  and  they 
had  become  the  citadels  of  the  worst  characters  in  the  com- 
munity, who  defied  the  ofiicers  of  justice  and  were  a  perpetual 
danger  to  the  surrounding  districts.  In  1697  a  law  had  been 
passed  annulling  their  franchises ;  but  similar  privileges,  though 
not  legally  recognised,  were  claimed  for  the  Mint  in  Southwark, 
and  for  many  years  were  successfully  maintained.  Multitudes 
of  debtors,  and  with  them  great  numbers  of  more  serious  crimi- 
nals, fled  to  this  quarter.  The  attempts  of  the  officers  to 
arrest  them  were  resisted  by  open  violence.  Every  kind  of  crime 
was  concocted  with  impunity  and  every  conspirator  knew  where 
to  look  for  daring  and  perfectly  unscrupulous  agents.  It  was  not 
until  1723  that  the  Government  ventured  to  grapple  firmly 
with  this  great  evil.  An  Act  making  it  felony  to  obstrutjt  the 
execution  of  a  writ,  and  enabling  the  Sheriff  of  Surrey  to  raise 
a  posse  comitatus  for  taking  by  force  debtors  from  the  Mint, 
finally  removed  this  plague-spot  from  the  metropolis,  and  put 
an  end  for  ever  in  England  to  that  right  of  sanctuary  which 
had  for  many  generations  been  one  of  the  most  serious  ob- 
structions to  the  empire  of  the  law.' 

'  Causes    of  the  Increase  of  Rob-  p.  235. 
hers.  ^  Macpherson's  Annals  of    Com- 

"^  See  an  extraordinary  instance  of  merce,  iii.  127-128. 
this  in  Andrews'  Eighteenth  Century, 


CH.  III.  POLICE  MEASUEES.  527 

Another  and  still  more  important  step  was  the  measure 
which  was  carried  in  1736  for  the  proper  lighting  of  the  streets. 
Up  to  this  date  London  was  probably  in  this  respect  behind 
every  other  great  city  in  Europe.  The  lighting  was  done  by 
contract,  and  the  contractors,  by  a  singular  arrangement,  agreed 
to  pay  the  City  600^.  a-year  for  their  monopoly.  In  return  for 
this  they  were  empowered  to  levy  a  rate  of  6s.  a-year  from  all 
housekeepers  who  paid  poor  rate,  and  from  all  who  had  houses 
of  over  lOl.  per  annum,  unless  they  hung  out  a  lantern  or 
candle  before  their  doors,  in  which  case  they  were  exempt  from 
paying  for  the  public  lamps.  The  contractors  were  bound  to 
place  a  light  before  every  tenth  house,  but  only  from  Michael- 
mas to  Lady  Day,  and  then  only  until  midnight,  and  only  on 
what  were  termed  '  dark  nights.'  The  '  light  nights '  were  ten 
every  month  from  the  sixth  after  the  new  moon  till  the  third 
after  the  full  moon.  The  system  was  introduced  at  the  end  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and  was  then  a  great  improvement, 
but  it  left  the  streets  of  London  absolutely  unlighted  for  far 
more  than  half  the  hours  of  darkness.  Under  such  conditions 
the  suppression  of  crime  was  impossible,  and  few  measm-es 
enacted  during  the  eighteenth  century  contributed  more  to  the 
safety  of  the  metropolis  than  that  which  was  passed  in  1736 
enabling  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Aldermen  to  erect  glass  lamps  in 
sufficient  numbers  throughout  Londo.n,  to  keep  them  lighted 
from  the  setting  to  the  rising  of  the  sun,  and  to  levy  a  con- 
siderable and  general  rate  for  their  maintenance.  More  than 
15,000  lamps  are  said  in  a  few  years  to  have  been  erected,  and 
it  was  calculated  that,  while  under  the  old  system  London  was 
only  lit  by  public  lamps  for  about  750  hours  in  the  year,  under 
the  new  system  it  was  lighted  for  about  5,000.' 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  great  change,  street  robberies  continued 
for  some  years  to  increase,  and  the  inefficiency  of  the  watchmen, 
and  the  great  multiplication  of  the  criminal  classes  under  the 
influence  of  gin,  were  constant  subjects  of  complaint.  The  great 
novelist  Fielding,  when  driven  by  narrowed  circumstances  to 
'  Maitland's  Sist.  of  London,  i.  565-567. 


528  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  m. 

accept  the  office  of  Bow  Street  magistrate,  did  much  both  to  call 
attention  to  and  to  remedy  the  evil.  Under  the  direction  of  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  he  and  his  brother,  who  succeeded  him  in  his 
post,  instituted  a  new  police,  consisting  of  picked  men  who  had 
been  constables,  and  who  were  placed  under  the  direct  control  of 
the  Bow  Street  magistrates.  A  very  remarkable  success  rewarded 
their  labours.  The  gang  which  had  so  long  terrified  London 
was  broken  up;  nearly  all  its  members  were  executed,  and 
the  change  effected  was  so  great  that  Browne,  writing  in  1757, 
was  able  to  say  that  '  the  reigning  evil  of  street  robberies  has 
been  almost  wholly  suppressed.'  ^  At  the  same  time  a  serious 
attempt  was  made,  at  once  to  remove  the  seeds  and  sources  of 
crime,^  and  to  provide  a  large  reserve  for  the  navy,  by  collecting 
many  hundreds  of  the  destitute  boys  who  swarmed  in  the  streets, 
clothing  them  by  public  subscription,  and  drafting  them  into 
ships  of  war,  where  they  were  educated  as  sailors.^  The  police- 
force  soon  became  again  very  inefficient,  but  the  condition  of 
London  does  not  appear  to  have  been  at  any  subsequent  period 
as  bad  as  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  though  the 
country  highways  were  still  infested  with  robbers.  The  early 
Hanoverian  period  has,  indeed,  probably  contributed  as  much  as 
any  other  portion  of  English  history  to  the  romance  of  crime. 
The  famous  burglar,  John  Sheppard,  after  two  marvellous  escapes 
from  Newgate,  which  made  him  the  idol  of  the  populace,  was 
at  last  hung  in  1724.  The  famous  thief-taker,  Jonathan  Wild, 
after  a  long  career  of  crime,  being  at  last  convicted  of  returning 
stolen  goods  to  the  rightful  owner  without  prosecuting  the 
thieves,  which  had  lately  been  made  a  capital  offence,'  was  ex- 
ecuted in  the  following  year,  and  was  soon  after  made  the  sub- 
ject of  a  romance  by  Fielding.  The  famous  highwayman,  Dick 
Turpin,  was  executed  in  1739.  Another  well-known  highway- 
man named  M'Lean  is  said  to  have  been  the  son  of  an  Irish 
Dean  and  brother  of  a  Calvinist  minister  in  great  esteem  at 

•  Browne's  Estimate,  i.  p.  219.  ^  The   goods  were  stolen,  and  as 

*  Sir  John  Fielding  on  tlie  police      soon  as  a  reward  was  offered  restored 
of  1753.  by  a  confederate. 


CH.  III.  PLUNDER   OF  WRECKS.  529 

the  Hague.  He  had  a  lodging  in  St.  James's  Street ;  his  man- 
ners were  those  of  a  polished  gentleman,  and  the  interest  he 
excited  was  so  great  tliat  the  day  before  his  execution  in  1750 
no  less  than  3,000  persons  visited  his  ccW  The  weakness  of 
the  law  was  also  shown  in  the  great  number  of  serious  riots 
which  took  place  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom.  The  Porteous 
riots  and  the  riots  against  the  malt-tax  in  Scotland,  the  Spital- 
fields  riots  directed  against  Irish  weavers,  and  the  numerous  riots 
occasioned  by  the  Gin  Act,  and  at  a  later  period  by  the  system 
of  turnpikes  and  by  the  preaching  of  the  Methodists,  were 
the  most  remarkable,  while  the  characteristic  English  hatred  of 
foreigners  was  shown  by  a  furious  disturbance  in  1738  because 
French  actors  were  employed  at  the  Haymarket,  and  some  years 
afterwards  by  the  sacking  of  Drury  Lane  theatre  because  Gar- 
rick  had  employed  in  a  spectacle  some  French  dancers.  Out- 
rages connected  Avith  smuggling  were  in  many  parts  of  the 
kingdom  singularly  daring  and  ferocious,  and  they  were  often 
countenanced  by  a  large  amount  of  popular  sympathy.^  In 
Hampshire  a  gang  of  deer-stealers,  known  as  the  Waltham 
Blacks,  were  in  the  reign  of  George  I.  so  numerous  and  so 
audacious,  that  a  special  and  most  sanguinary  law,  known  as 
the  '  Black  Act,'  was  found  necessary  for  their  suppression.^ 

Another  crime,  strikingly  indicative  of  the  imperfect  civil- 
isation of  the  country,  was  the  plunder  of  shipwrecked  sailors, 
who  were  often  lured  by  false  signals  upon  the  rocks.  In  some 
of  the  Northern  countries  of  Europe,  till  a  comparatively  recent 
period,  the  law  expressly  permitted  the  inhabitants  to  seize,  as 
a  prize,  any  property  that  was  Avi-ecked  upon  their  coast.''  In 
England,  without  any  such  permission,  it  became  a  prevalent 
custom.  At  the  clofee  of  the  seventeenth  century  Defoe  men- 
'tions  that  many  Englishmen  had  been  sacrificed  abroad  in  re- 

'  Horace  Walpole  to  Mann.    Aug.  *  See  Pike's  Hist,  of  Crivhe,  ii.  399, 

17.50.     Walpole    had     himself    been  652. 

robbed    by   M'Lean.      Some   curious  *   9  George  I.  c.  22.     See  White's 

particulars  of  the  crime  of  this  period  Selborne,  p.  2^,  30. 
will  be   found   in    Harris's    Life  of  *  Blackstone,  bk.  i.  ch.  viii.  §  2, 

Hardwickc. 

VOL.  I.  „„. 


530  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

sentment  for  these  barbarities,  and  he  tells  us  how,  when  a 
ship  of  which  he  was  himself  a  shareholder  was  sinking  on  the 
coast  of  Biscay,  a  Spanish  ship  refused  to  give  any  assistance, 
the  captain  declaring,  '  that,  having  been  shipwrecked  some- 
where on  the  coast  of  England,  the  people,  instead  of  saving 
him  and  his  ship,  came  off  and  robbed  him,  tore  the  ship  al- 
most to  pieces,  and  left  him  and  his  men  to  swim  ashore  for 
their  lives  while  they  plundered  the  cargo  ;  upon  which  he  and 
his  whole  crew  had  sworn  never  to  help  an  Englishman  in  what- 
ever distress  he  should  find  them,  whether  at  sea  or  on  shore.'  ^ 
About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  crime  increased 
to  an  enormous  degree  on  many  parts  of  the  British  coast.^  In 
order  to  check  it  a  law  had  been  passed  in  the  reign  of  Anne 
and  made  perpetual  under  George  I.,  making  it  felony,  without 
the  benefit  of  clergy,  to  do  any  act  by  which  a  ship  was 
destroyed,  fining  anyone  who  secreted  shipwrecked  goods  treble 
their  value,  and  enabling  the  authorities  in  every  seaport  town 
to  take  special  measures  for  the  relief  of  ships  in  distress,  and 
in  case  of  success  to  exact  a  certain  sum  from  the  owners 
as  salvage.^  It  was  ordered  that  this  act  should  be  read  four 
times  yearly  in  all  the  parish  churches  and  chapels  of  all  sea- 
port towns  in  the  kingdom.*  It  proved,  however,  utterly  insuffi- 
cient, and  in  the  administration  of  Pelhamtheplunder  of  a  ship- 
wrecked or  distressed  vessel  was  made  a  capital  offence.^  Not- 
withstanding this  enactment,  however,  the  crime  was  by  no 
means  suppressed.  It  was  the  especial  scandal  of  Cornwall.  In 
visiting  that  county  in  1776,  Wesley  learnt  that  it  was  still  as 
common  there  as  ever ;  he  severely  censured  the  connivance  or 
indifference  of  the  gentry,  who  might  have  totally  suppressed 
it,^  and  he  also  found  the  custom  very  general  on  the  western 
coast  of  Ire  land.'' 

'  Wilson's  TAfe  of  Defoe,  i.  209.  '  « A   Swedish    ship  being  leaky 

"^  Coxe's  Life  of  Pelham,  ii.  272.  put  into  one  of   our  harbours.     The 

'  12  Anne  II.  c.  IS ;  4  George  I.  c.  Irish,   according  to   custom,   ran   to 

12-                         ^  plunder  her.    A  neighbouring  gentle- 

*  Macpherson"s  Annals    of    Com-  man  hindered  them ;  and  for  so  doing 
mcrce,  iii.  pp.  39-41.  demanded  a  fourth  part  of  the  cargo. 

*  26  George  II.  c.  19.  And  this,  they  said,  the  law  allows.' 
«  Wesley's  Journal,  Aug.  1776.  —Wesley's  Journal,  June  1760, 


CH.  III.  FLEET  MAKRIAGES,  531 

The  long  list  of  social  reforms  passed  under  the  Pelham 
ministry  may  be  fitly  closed  by  the  Marriage  Act  of  Lord  Hard- 
wicke,  which  put  a  stop  to  those  Fleet  marriages  which  had 
become  one  of  the  strangest  scandals  of  English  life.  Before 
this  Act,  the  canon  law  was  in  force  in  England,  and  according 
to  its  provisions  the  mere  consent  of  the  parties,  followed  by 
cohabitation,  constituted,  for  many  purposes,  a  valid  marriage ; 
and  a  marriage  valid  for  all  pm-poses  could  be  celebrated  by  a 
priest  in  orders  at  any  time  or  place,  without  registration  and 
without  the  consent  of  parents  or  guardians.  Stamped  licences 
were  indeed  required  by  law,  but  not  for  the  validity  of  the  con- 
tract, and  their  omission  was  only  punished  as  a  fraud  upon  the 
revenue.  In  such  a  state  of  the  law  atrocious  abuses- had  grown 
up.  A  multitude  of  clergymen,  usually  prisoners  for  debt  and 
almost  always  men  of  notoriously  infamous  lives,  made  it  their 
business  to  celebrate  clandestine  marriages  in  or  near  the 
Fleet.  They  performed  the  ceremony  without  licence  or  ques- 
tion, sometimes  without  even  knowing  the  names  of  the  persons 
they  united,  in  public-houses,  brothels,  or  garrets.  They  ac- 
knowledged no  ecclesiastical  superior.  Almost  every  tavern  or 
brandy  shop  in  the  neighbourhood  had  a  Fleet  parson  in  its 
pay.  Notices  were  placed  in  the  windows,  and  agents  went  out 
in  every  direction  to  solicit  the  passers  by.  A  more  pretentious, 
and  perhaps  more  popular  establishment  was  the  Chapel  in 
Ourzon-street,  where  the  Kev.  Alexander  Keith  officiated.  He 
was  said  to  have  made  a  '  very  bishopric  of  revenue '  by  clan- 
destine marriages,  and  the  expression  can  hardly  be  exag- 
gerated if  it  be  true,  as  was  asserted  in  Parliament,  that  he  had 
married  on  an  average  6,000  couples  every  year.  He  himself 
stated  that  he  had  married  many  thousands,  the  great  majority 
of  whom  had  not  known  each  other  more  than  a  week,  and 
many  only  a  day  or  half  a  day.  Young  and  inexperienced  heirs 
fresh  from  college,  or  even  from  school,  were  thus  continually 
entrapped.  A  passing  frolic,  the  excitement  of  drink,  an 
almost  momentary  passion,  the  deception  or  intimidation  of  a 
few  unprincipled  confederates,  were  often  sufficient  to  drive  or 


I 


532  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  hi. 

inveigle  them  into  sudden   marriages,  which   blasted    all  the 
prospects  of  their  lives.     In  some  cases,  when  men  slept  off  a 
drunken  fit,  they  heard  to  their  astonishment  that,  during  its 
continuance,  they  had  gone  through  the  ceremony.     When  a 
fleet  came  in  and  tlie  sailors  flocked  on  shore  to  spend  their  pay 
in  drink  and  among  prostitutes,  they  were  speedily  beleaguered, 
and  200  or  300  marriages  constantly  took  place  within  a  week. 
Among  the  more  noted  instances  of  clandestine  marriages  we 
find  that  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  with  Miss  Grunning,  that  of 
the  Duke  of  Kingston  with  Miss  Chudleigh,  that  of  Henry  Fox 
with  the  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Eichmond,  that  of  the  poet 
Churchill,  who  at  the  age  of  seventeen  entered  into  a  marriage 
which  contributed  largely  to  the  unhappiness  of  his  life.     The 
state   of  the  law   seemed,   indeed,    ingeniously  calculated   to 
promote  both  the  misery  and  the  immorality  of  the  people,  for 
while  there  was  every  facility  for  contracting  the  most  incon- 
siderate marriages,  divorce,  except  by  a  special  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, was  absolutely  unattainable.     It  is  not  surprising  that  con- 
tracts so  lightly  entered  into  should  have  been  as  lightly  violated. 
Desertion,  conjugal  infidelity,  bigamy,  fictitious  marriages  cele- 
brated by  sham  priests,  were  the  natural  and  frequent  con- 
sequences of  the  system.     In  many  cases  in  the  Fleet  registers, 
names  were  suppressed  or  falsified,  and  marriages  fraudulently 
antedated,  and  many  households,  after  years   of  peace,  were 
convulsed  by  some  alleged  pre-contract  or  clandestine  tie.    It 
was  proved  before  Parliament  that  on  one  occasion  there  had 
been  2,954  Fleet  man-iages  in  four  months,  and  it  appeared 
from  the  memorandum-books  of  Fleet  parsons  that  one  of  them 
made  571.  in  marriage  fees  in  a  single  month,  that  another  had 
married  173  couples  in  a  single  day. 

The  evil  was  of  considerable  standing,  and  some  attempts 
had  been  made  to  remedy  it.  By  a  law  of  William  III.  any 
clergyman  celebrating  a  marriage  without  licence  was  subject 
to  a  fine  of  100?.,'  but  this  penalty  was  not  renewed  at  each 
violation  of  the  Act,  and  the  offender  was  able  by  a  writ  of 

'  6  &  7  William  m.  c.  6  ;    7  &  8  William  HI.  c.  xxxv. 


CH.  III.  THE  MAERIAGE  ACT.  533 

error  to  obtain  a  delay  of  about  a  year  and  a  half,  during  which 
time  he  carried  on  his  profession  without  molestation,  made  at 
least  400L  or  500^.,  and  then  frequently  absconded.  No  penalty 
whatever  attached  to  the  public-house  keeper,  who  hired  the 
clergyman,  and  in  whose  house  the  ceremony  was  performed. 
Another  Act,  passed  in  1712,  after  reciting  the  loss  the  revenue 
experienced  from  these  practices,  raised  the  penalty  incurred  by 
the  priest  to  imprisonment,  but  this  also  it  was  found  possible 
to  evade.  To  meet  the  evil  it  was  necessary  to  re-model  the 
whole  marriage  law.  The  first  step  in  this  direction  was 
taken  by  Lord  Bath,  who,  when  attending  a  Scotch  trial,  was 
struck  by  the  hardship  of  a  case  in  which  a  man,  after  a 
marriage  of  thirty  years,  was  claimed  by  another  woman  on 
the  ground  of  a  pre-contract;  but  the  preparation  of  a  mea- 
sure on  the  subject  soon  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Chan- 
cellor, Lord  Hardwicke,  who  succeeded,  in  1753,  in  carrying 
it  successfully  through  Parliament.  His  Act  provided  that, 
with  the  exception  of  Jewish  and  Quaker  marriages,  no 
marriage  should  be  valid  in  England  which  was  not  cele- 
brated by  a  priest  in  orders,  and  according  to  the  Anglican 
liturgy,  that  the  ceremony  could  not  be  performed  imless  the 
banns  had  been  published  for  three  successive  Sundays  in  the 
parish  church,  or  unless  a  licence  had  been  procured,  and  that 
these  licences  in  the  cases  of  minors  should  be  conditional  upon 
the  consent  of  the  parents  or  guardians.  The  special  licence  by 
which  alone  the  marriage  could  be  celebrated  in  any  other  place 
than  the  parish  church,  could  only  be  issued  by  the  Archbishop, 
and  cost  a  considerable  sum.  All  marriages  which  did  not  con- 
form to  these  provisions  were  null,  and  all  who  celebrated  them 
were  liable  to  transportation.^ 

This  measui-e  is  extremely  important,  as  introducing  into 
English  legislation  a  principle  which  has  even  now  by  no  means 
attained  its  full  recognition,  but  which  is  evidently  destined  to 
become  one  day  supreme.  According  to  the  theological  theory 
which   was   adopted   by   the   law   of  England,    and  was  long 

'  26  George  U.  c.   33. 


534  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iii. 

absolute  in  Christendom,  the  Church  alone  has  a  right  to  deter- 
mine what  constitutes  the  validity  of  a  marriage,  and  when  that 
marriage  is' once  consummated  it  is  absolutely  indissoluble,  and 
possesses  a  mystical  sanctity  altogether  irrespective  of  its  in- 
fluence upon  society.  In  opposition  to  this  view  there  has 
grown  up  in  the  last  century  a  conviction  that  it  is  not  the  busi- 
ness of  the  State  to  enforce  morals,  and  especially  any  particular 
theological  conceptions  of  duty,  that  its  sole  end  should  be  to 
increase  the  temporal  happiness  of  the  people,  and  that  the  re- 
strictions it  imposes  on  individual  liberty  can  only  be  justified, 
and  should  be  strictly  limited,  by  this  end.  According  to  this 
view  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  legal  conceptions  of  marriage 
are  entirely  distinct.  Marriage  should  be  regarded  by  the 
leo-islator  merely  as  a  civil  contract  of  extreme  importance 
to'' the  maintenance  of  the  young,  the  disposition  of  property, 
and  the  stability  of  society ;  and  it  is  the  right  and  the  duty  of 
the  State,  with  a  sole  view  to  the  interests  of  society,  to  deter- 
mine on  what  conditions  it  may  be  celebrated,  annulled,    or 

repeated. 

In  some  respects  these  two  views  coincide,  while  in  others 
they  conflict.  Every  statesman  will  admit  that  the  purity  and 
stability  of  the  marriage  state  are  social  ends  of  great  importance, 
and  that  a  religious  sanction  contributes  to  secure  them.  At 
the  same  time  the  legislator  will,  in  some  respects,  be  more  severe, 
and  in  others  more  indulgent  than  the  divine.  Considering 
marriage  as  a  contract  involving  momentous  civil  consequences, 
he  may  insist  that  it  should  be  entered  into  publicly,  formally,  and 
deliberately,  may  lay  down  in  the  interests  of  society  certain 
restrictive  conditions,  and  may  absolutely  refuse,  when  those 
conditions  are  not  complied  with,  to  recognise  its  existence,  or  to 
punish  those  who  violate  or  repeat  it.  On  the  other  hand,  in  all 
questions  relating  to  marriages  of  consanguinity  or  to  divorce,  State 
interference  with  the  liberty  of  individuals  can  only  be  justified 
on  utilitarian  grounds.  If,  for  example,  the  question  be  that  of 
marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister,  a  legislator  imbued  with 
this  spirit  will  consider  it  wholly  irrelevant  to  discuss  whether 


CH.  III.  THE  MAERIAGE  ACT.  535 

such  marriages  were  or  were  not  forbidden  in  the  Levitieal  code, 
whether  the  Levitieal  code  is  binding  upon  a  Christian,  whether 
ecclesiastical  tradition  favoiu's  or  condemns  them.  The  sole  ques- 
tion for  him  to  decide  is  whether  they  produce  such  a  clear  pre- 
ponderance of  social  evils  as  would  justify  him  in  restricting  in 
this  respect  the  natural  liberty  of  the  subject.  If  they  do  not, 
they  should  be  permitted,  and  those  who  regard  them  as  theo- 
logically wrong  should  refrain  from  contracting  them.  A 
similar  principle  applies  to  the  difficult  question  of  divorce. 
At  first  sight  nothing  can  appear  more  monstrous  than  that 
when  two  persons  have  voluntarily  entered  into  a  contract  with 
the  single  purpose  of  promoting  their  mutual  happiness,  when 
they  find  by  experience  that  the  efifect  of  that  contract  is  not 
happiness  but  misery,  and  when  they  are  both  of  them  anxious 
to  dissolve  it,  the  law — whose  sole  legitimate  object  is  the 
happiness  of  the  people  should  interpose  to  prevent  it.  The 
presumption  against  such  an  interference  with  individual  liberty 
must  always  be  very  weighty,  and  there  are  many  considerations 
which  tend  to  strengthen  it.  Of  all  forms  of  wretchedness,  that 
resulting  from  an  unhappy  marriage  is  perhaps  the  most  diffi- 
cult to  anticipate,  for  it  may  result  from  a  turn  of  disposition 
or  an  infirmity  of  temper  which  is  only  revealed  by  the  most 
intimate  knowledge.  In  all  ages  and  countries  a  vast  propor- 
tion of  these  life-long  contracts  have  either  been  negotiated  by 
the  relations  of  the  contracting  parties,  with  only  their  nominal 
consent,  or  have  been  entered  into  at  an  age  when  there  can  be 
little  knowledge  of  life  or  character,  when  the  judgment  is  still 
unformed,  or  under  the  influence  of  a  passion  which  is  pro- 
verbially fitted  to  distort  it.  It  is  also  a  well  recognised  fact 
that,  as  Swift  says,  the  art  of  '  making  nets '  is  very  different 
from  the  art  of  '  making  cages,'  that  many  of  the  qualities 
peculiarly  fitted  to  attract  men  into  marriage  are  also  peculiarly 
imfitted  to  secure  the  happiness  of  a  home.  It  may  be  added 
that  while  the  chances  of  unhappiness  in  tliis  contract  are  so 
many,  that  unhappiness  may  easily  rise  to  an  amount  of 
moral  misery  no  other  condition  can  produce,  for  it  extends  to 


536  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

and  embitters  the  minutest  details  of  daily  life,  pervades  every 
sphere  and  depresses  every  aim.  In  many  cases  marriage  in- 
volves to  the  weaker  party  a  tyranny  so  brutal,  galling,  incessant, 
and  at  the  same  time  absolutely  hopeless,  that  it  forms  the 
nearest  earthly  type  of  eternal  damnation.  In  such  cases  it 
would  be  much  more  reasonable  to  speak  of  the  sacrament  of 
divorce  than  of  the  sacrament  of  marriage,  and  it  were  hard  to 
say  what  benefit  issues  from  the  contract,  unless  it  be  that  of 
relieving  death  of  half  its  terror  by  depriving  life  of  all  its 
charm.  Thousands  of  couples  who,  if  freed  from  the  efiects  of 
one  great  mistake,  possess  all  the  elements  of  usefulness  and 
enjoyment,  are  thus  condemned  by  law  to  the  total  sacrifice  of 
the  happiness  of  their  lives.  Nor  are  the  moral  effects  less 
disastrous.  No  condition  can  be  more  fitted  to  break  down  and 
degrade  the  moral  character  than  that  I  have  described.  No 
condition  can  present  stronger  temptations.  A  moralist  may 
very  reasonably  doubt  whether  even  open  profligacy  is  more 
debasing  than  a  legitimate  union,  in  which  hatred  has  taken  the 
place  of  love,  and  the  unspoken  day-dream  of  each  partner  is 
to  witness  the  biuial  of  the  other. 

It  is  added  that  even  if  the  law  imposed  no  restrictions  on 
divorce,  perpetual  monogamous  attachments  would  always  be  the 
most  common,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  are  those  which  are 
most  conducive  to  the  happiness  of  men.  They  have  in  their 
support  one  of  the  strongest  of  all  human  sentiments — the 
cohesion  of  custom.  In  no  other  case  is  this  cohesion  so  power- 
ful, for  in  no  other  is  the  relation  so  close  or  so  constant.  Put- 
ting aside  the  idle  cant  of  satirical  writers,  every  candid  observer 
will  admit  that  the  death  of  a  husband  or  a  wife  is  usually,  with- 
out exception,  the  greatest  calamity  that  can  befall  the  survivor. 
With  such  a  voluntary  cohesion  severance  would  be  very  rare 
unless  there  were  some  strong  reason  to  overcome  it,  and  when 
80  strong  a  reason  exists  it  would  probably  be  advisable.  The 
birth  of  children,  which  makes  the  stability  of  the  family 
peculiarly  necessary,  contributes  in  itself  to  secure  it,  for  every 
child  joins  its  parents  by  a  new  bond.     Nature  has  abundantly 


CH   III.  DIVOECE.  537 

provided  for  the  stability  of  the  marriage  state  when  it  promotes 
happiness.  Why  should  the  law  prevent  its  dissolution  when  it 
produces  pain  ? 

The  answer  is  that  these  arguments  underrate  the  violence  of 
a  passion  which  is,  perhaps,  the  most  dangerous  and  unruly  in 
human  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  neglect  to  make  sufficient 
allowance  for  the  inequality  of  the  sexes.  In  the  marriage  con- 
tract the  woman  is  the  weaker ;  she  is  usually  the  poorer  ;  her 
happiness  is  far  more  absolutely  bound  up  with  her  domestic 
life  than  the  happiness  of  a  man.  Her  vigour  passes  before 
that  of  her  husband.  If  cast  out  at  a  mature  age  from  the 
domestic  circle  her  whole  life  is  broken,  and  the  very  probability 
of  such  a  fate  is  sufficient  to  embitter  it.  If  divorce  could 
always  be  effected  without  delay,  difficulty,  expense,  or  blame  ; 
if  the  law  provided  no  protection  for  the  weaker  partner  against 
those  violent  passions  which  may  be  conceived  by  one  sex  in 
matiure  age,  and  which  are  rarely  inspired  by  the  other  except 
in  youth,  it  is  easy  to  predict  what  would  be  the  result.  The 
tie  of  custom  would  in  innumerable  cases  be  snapped  by  the 
impulse  of  passion.  Very  many  would  never  pass  that  painful 
novitiate,  when  tastes  and  habits  have  not  yet  assimilated,  which 
is  now  so  often  the  preface  to  many  years  of  uninterrupted  hap- 
piness. In  many  cases  the  mere  decline  of  physical  charms 
would  lead  to  a  severance  of  the  bond.  The  appetite  for  change 
would  grow  with  the  means  of  gratifying  it,  and  thus  affections 
would  be  weakened,  habits  would  be  unsettled,  and  insecm-ity 
and  misery  would  be  widely  spread.  Nor  would  the  evil  stop 
here.  The  stability  of  domestic  life  is  of  vital  importance  to 
the  position,  the  education,  and  the  moral  culture  of  the  young, 
and  to  the  maintenance  among  all  classes  of  those  steady  and 
'  settled  habits  that  are  most  valuable  to  the  commimity. 

It  is  not  necessary  in  this  place  to  pursue  this  subject  into 
detail,  or  to  discuss  the  exact  amount  of  restriction  which  in 
these  cases  can  be  judiciously  imposed.  It  is  plain  that  the 
marriage  tie  is  not  one  of  those  which  the  legislator  can  deal  with 
on  the  principle  of  unlimited  freedom  of  contract.     It  is  also,  I 


538  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

think,  plain  that  the  complete  ascendency  in  law  of  the  secular 
view  of  marriage  must  sooner  or  later  lead  to  a  greater  extension 
of  the  liberty  of  divorce  than  in  England,  at  least,  is  admitted. 
The  condemnation  of  either  partner  for  any  of  the  graver  or 
more  deo-rading  forms  of  criminal  offence,  and  even  habits  of 
inveterate  and  systematic  drunkenness,  might  very  reasonably  be 
made  legal  causes.  The  question  whether  the  desire  of  the  two 
contracting  parties,  who  have  discovered  that  the  contract  into 
which  they  had  entered  is  prejudicial  to  their  happiness,  should 
be  regarded  as  a  sufficient  ground  is  a  much  more  difficult  one. 
It  is  clear,  however,  that  a  legislator  who  accorded  such  latitude 
would  be  perfectly  justified  in  imposing  upon  both  parties  such 
a  period  of  probation  or  delay  as  would  meet  the  cases  of  fickle- 
ness or  sudden  passion,  and  on  the  stronger  party  such  special 
burdens  as  would  to  some  extent  equalise  the  balance  of  interest. 
But  his  judgment  on  this  matter  should  be  formed  solely  by  an 
estimate  of  consequences.  He  must  strike  the  balance  between 
opposing  evils,  and  his  point  of  view  is  thus  wholly  different 
from  that  of  the  theologian  who  starts  with  the  belief  that 
divorce  is  in  itself  necessarily  sacrilegious.  This  is  a  matter  for 
the  conscience  and  judgment  of  individuals,  but  not  for  the  cog- 
nisance of  law.  In  the  Marriage  Act  of  Lord  Hardwicke 
the  question  of  divorce  was  notdirectly  raised,  but  the  modern 
legal  doctrine  of  marriage  was  fully  established  by  the  clause 
which  treated  matrimonial  contracts  as  absolute  nullities,  though 
they  were  celebrated  with  a  regular  religious  ceremony,  if  certain 
legal  requirements  were  wanting.  The  dissolution  of  religious 
marriages  for  temporal  reasons  was,  indeed,  not  altogether  new 
in  British  law.  In  the  Eegency  Bill,  which  was  passed  on  the 
death  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  in  1751,  there  was  a  clause  annul- 
ling any  marriage  contracted  by  the  young  heir  to  the  throne 
before  the  expiration  of  his  minority  without  the  consent  of  the 
Eegent, orofthe  major  part  of  the  Council;  and  a  similar  prin- 
ciple was  involved  in  the  Irish  law  annulling  marriages  between 
Protestants  and  Catholics,  celebrated  by  priests  or  degraded 
clergymen.     The   Marriage  Act  of  1753,  however,   gave   this 


CH.  Ill  THE  MAERIAGE  ACT  539 

principle  a  much  greater  extension.  It  was  justly  noticed  as  a 
striking  illustration  of  the  decline  of  dogmatic  theology  in 
England  that  a  bill  involving  so  important  a  principle  should 
have  passed  without  serioas  difficulty  through  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  should  have  been  assented  to  by  the  whole  bench  of 
bishops.^ 

In  the  House  of  Commons,  however,  the  Marriage  bill  was 
fiercely  assailed.  Henry  Fox,  who  had  himself  a  very  natural 
predilection  for  the  old  system,  though  a  member  of  the 
Government,  met  it  with  the  most  determined  and  acrimonious 
opposition,  and  he  found  a  considerable  body  of  supporters. 
Their  arguments  will  now  appear  to  most  men  very  incon- 
clusive. Much  was  said  on  such  topics  as  the  natural  right  of 
all  men  to  be  married  as  they  pleased,  the  immorality  that  would 
ensue  from  any  measure  which  rendered  marriages  diflBcult,  the 
tendency  of  the  new  Bill  to  increase  the  despotic  power  of 
parents,  and  the  advantages  of  the  old  system  in  assisting 
younger  sons  in  marrying  heiresses,  and  thus  dispersing  for- 
tunes which  under  the  law  of  primogeniture  had  been  unduly 
accumulated.2  Such  arguments  could  have  no  real  weight  in  the 
face  of  the  glaring  and  scandalous  evils  of  Fleet  marriages,  and 
the  law  as  remodelled  by  Lord  Hardwicke  continued  in  force 
until  the  present  century.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the 
monopoly  which  the  Anglican  clergy  possessed  of  celebrating 
legal  marriages  could  not  be  accepted  by  other  sects  as  a 
final  settlement  of  the  question,  and  as  the  principle  of  re- 
ligious equality  became  more  fully  recognised  in  English  politics, 
a  serious  and  at  last  successful  agitation  arose  against  the  Act. 
There  were  also  some  legal  Baws  in  it  which  somewhat  quali- 
fied the  admiration  with  which  it  was  regarded  by  lawyers.^ 

'  W&\^o\g's  Memoirs  of  George  11.  society,  the  jjolden  grate  that  sepa- 

i.  pp.  146,  342.  rates  the  nobility  from  the  plebeians,' 

^  It   is   curious   to   observe  what  that  'from  beginning  to  end  of  the 

nonsense     Horace     Walpole     talked  Bill  one  only  view  had  predominated, 

about  this  Bill,  not  in  a  party  speech,  that  of  pride  and  of  aristocracy.' — 

but  in  a  grave  history.     He  says  that  Memoirs  of    George    II.    i.    336-348, 

it  'seemed  to  annex  as  sacred  priv-  358- 

ileges  to  birth  as  could  be  devised  in  '  See    Lord     Campbell's     severe 

the   proudest,   poorest  little   Italian  judgment  of  it.     Lives  of  the  Clian- 

principality,'  tliat  it  was  '  the  bane  of  ccllors,  vi.  262. 


540  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKy.  ch.  ni. 

Such  as  it  was,  however,  it  was  effectual  in  suppressing  a  great 
scandal  and  a  great  evil  which  had  taken  deep  root  in  the 
habits  of  the  nation.  With  large  classes  of  the  community  the 
easy  process  of  Fleet  marriages  was  very  popular.  On  the  day 
before  the  new  law  came  into  force  no  less  than  300  were  cele- 
brated, and  a  bold  attempt  was  made  by  a  clergyman  named 
Wilkinson  to  perpetuate  the  system  at  the  Savoy.  He  claimed, 
by  virtue  of  some  old  privileges  attaching  to  that  quarter,  to  be 
extra-parochial,  and  to  have  the  right  of  issuing  licences  himself, 
and  he  is  said  to  have  actually  celebrated  as  many  as  1,400 
clandestine  marriages  after  the  Marriage  Act  had  passed.  By 
the  instrumentality  of  Grarrick,  one  of  whose  company  had  been 
married  in  this  manner  in  1756,  a  Savoy  licence  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  Government,  and  the  trial  and  transportation 
of  Wilkinson  and  his  curate  put  an  end  to  clandestine  marriages 
in  England.  Those  who  desired  them,  however,  found  a  refuge 
in  Scotland,  the  Isle  of  Man,  and  Gruernsey  ;  and  in  1760  there 
were  always  vessels  ready  at  Southampton  to  carry  fugitive 
lovers  to  the  latter  island.^ 

The  measures  I  have  enumerated,  though  very  important,  were 
for  the  most  part  remedies  applied  to  some  great  and  crying  evils 
which  had  at  last  become  intolerable  to  the  community.  Of  the 
active  reforming  and  philanthropic  spirit  which  became  so  con- 
spicuous in  the  reign  of  George  III.  we  find  scarcely  any  traces. 
Something  of  this  spirit  may  be  detected  in  the  creation  of  the 
great  religious  societies,  and  in  part  of  the  legislation  of  William. 
Something  of  it  appeared,  though  in  a  more  exclusively  ecclesi- 
astical form,  during  the  clerical  reaction  under  Anne,  but  during 
the  ascendency  of  Walpole  and  the  Pelhams  it  almost  wholly 
died  away.  The  Methodist  movement  was  as  yet  in  its  purely 
religious  stage ;  the  Court  and  Government  initiated  nothing, 
and  the  number  of  private  reformers  was  very  small.  The 
scheme  of  Berkeley  for  founding  a  Christian  university  in  Ber- 

•  See   J.  Soutlierden  Birrn's  very  Pennant's  London ;   Smollett's  Hist.  ; 

OMxious  Hist,  of  Fleet  Marriages;  the  Pari.  Hist.;  and  Walpole 's    Memoirs 

copious    extracts     from    the     Fleet  of  George  II. 
registers  in  Knight's  Hist,  of  London ; 


CH.  in.  BERKELEY  AND  OGLETHORPE.  541 

muda  for  the  civilisation  and  conversion  of  America  was  one  of 
the  few  examples.  This  most  extraordinary  man,  who  united 
the  rarest  and  most  various  intellectual  gifts  with  a  grace  and 
purity  of  character,  and  an  enthusiasm  of  benevolence,  that 
fascinated  all  about  him,  succeeded  for  a  time  in  communicating 
something  of  his  own  spirit  to  some  of  the  most  selfish  of 
politicians.  The  story  is  well  known  how  his  irresistible 
eloquence  turned  the  ridicule  of  the  Scriblerus  Club  into  a 
brief  but  genuine  outburst  of  enthusiasm ;  how  he  raised  by 
subscription  a  considerable  sum  for  carrying  out  his  scheme, 
Walpole  himself  contributing  200^. ;  how  his  success  in  can- 
vassing the  ]\Iembers  of  Parliament  was  so  great  that  the  Bill 
for  endowing  the  university  passed  in  1726  with  only  two  dis- 
sentient voices.  Walpole  was  astonished  at  the  success,  having, 
as  he  said,  'taken  it  for  granted  the  very  preamble  of  the  Bill 
would  have  secured  its  rejection,'  but  although  he  promised 
20,000^.  he  never  paid  it,  and  in  1731  Berkeley,  receiving 
a  private  intimation  that  it  was  hopeless  expecting  it,  was 
obliged  to  abandon  the  enterprise,  and  returned  from  Khode 
Island  to  Ireland. 

A  more  successful  reformer  was  James  Oglethorpe,  a  very 
remarkable  man,  whose  long  life  of  96  years  was  crowded  with 
picturesque  incidents  and  with  the  most  various  and  active 
benevolence.  Having  served  as  a  young  man  under  Prince 
Eugene,  he  entered  Parliament  in  1722,  and  sat  there  for  thirty- 
three  years.  Though  a  man  of  indomitable  energy,  and  of 
some  practical  and  organising  talent,  he  had  no  forensic  abiKty, 
and  he  was  both  too  hot-tempered,  too  impulsive,  and  too  mag- 
nanimous to  take  a  high  rank  among  the  adroit  and  intriguing 
politicians  of  his  time.  He  would  probably  have  remained  an 
imdistinguished  Member  of  Parliament  if  it  had  not  happened 
that  among  his  acquaintances  was  a  gentleman  named  Castell, 
who,  having  fallen  from  a  considerable  position  into  hopeless 
debt,  had  been  imprisoned  in  the  Fleet,  and  being  unable  to 
pay  the  accustomed  fees  to  the  warder,  had  been  confined  in  a 
house  where  the  small-pox  was  raging,  and  had  perished  by  the 


542  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

disease.  This  incident  directed  the  attention  of  Oglethorpe  to 
the  management  of  the  prisons.  For  many  years  it  had  been 
known  that  debtors  in  England  were  subject  to  frightful  privations, 
and  a  book  had  been  published  as  early  as  1691  enumerating 
their  wi'ono-s,'  but  no  steps  had  been  taken  to  redress  them. 
Oglethorpe,  however,  succeeded  in  1729  in  obtaining  a  Parlia- 
mentary inquiry  into  the  condition  of  the  Fleet  and  the  Mar- 
shalsea,  which  was  afterwards  extended  to  that  of  the  other 
jails,  and  the  results  were  so  horrible  that  they  produced  a 
universal  cry  of  indignation.  It  appeared  that  the  wardenship 
of  the  Fleet  was  regularly  put  up  for  sale,  that  it  had  been 
bought  from  the  great  Lord  Clarendon  by  John  Huggins  for 
5,000?.,  that  it  had  been  sold  by  Huggins  to  Rambridge  for  the 
same  sum  in  1728,  and  that  these  men  were  accustomed,  in 
addition  to  the  large  regidar  emoluments  of  the  office,  to  exact 
heavy  fees  from  the  prisoners,  and  to  avenge  themselves  upon 
those  who  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  pay  them,  by  the  utmost 
excesses  of  brutality.  In  the  Fleet,  when  Bambridge  was 
governor,  such  prisoners  were  continually  left  manacled  for  long 
periods  in  a  dtmgeon,  almost  unendm-able  from  its  stench  and  its 
want  of  ventilation,  situated  above  a  common  sewer,  and  in 
which  the  bodies  of  those  who  died  in  the  prison  were  deposited  to 
await  the  coroner's  inquest.  One  brave  soldier  had  been  falsely 
accused  of  theft,  acquitted  by  the  jury,  and  then  seized  and 
imprisoned  as  a  debtor  by  the  jailer  on  account  of  the  jail-fees 
that  were  incm-red  during  his  detention.  Cases  were  proved  of 
debtors  who,  being  unable  to  pay  their  fees,  were  locked  up,  like 
Castell,  with  prisoners  suffering  from  small-pox,  and  thus  rapidly 
destroyed ;  of  others  who  were  reduced  almost  to  skeletons  by 
insufficient  food,  of  sick  women  who  were  left  without  beds, 
without  attendance,  and  without  proper  nourishment,  till  they 
died  of  neglect ;  of  men  who  were  tortured  by  the  thumbscrew, 
or  who  lingered  in  slow  agony  under  irons  of  intolerable  weight. 

'  See    on    this    subject    Muralt's  prayer  '  for  imprisoned  debtors '  to  be 

Letters  on  the  English  (Eng.  trans.  inserted    in    the  Irish    Prayer-book. 

1726),  p.  69.     In  1711  the  Irish  Con-  Manfs  Hist,  of  the  Irish  Church,  ii. 

vocation  ordered  a  special  form   of  p.  233. 


CH.  ni.  STATE   OF  THE  PEISONS.  543 

One  poor  Portuguese  had  been  left  for  two  months  in  this  condi- 
tion. Another  prisoner  had  lost  all  memory  and  all  use  of  his  limbs 
from  the  sufferings  he  underwent.  Great  nmnbers  perished 
through  want  of  the  most  ordinary  care.  It  appears,  indeed,  to 
have  been  the  deliberate  intention  of  the  governor  to  put  an  end 
to  some  of  liis  prisoners,  either  because  they  were  unable  to  pay 
fees,  or  because  they  had  for  some  reason  incurred  his  resent- 
ment, or  in  order  that  he  might  obtain  the  small  remnants  of 
their  property.  In  Newgate,  and  in  some  of  the  provincial 
prisons  in  England,  almost  equal  atrocities  were  discovered.  In 
Dublin — where  inquiries  were  instituted  with  commendable 
promptitude  by  the  Irish  Parliament  —it  was  found  that  a  tax 
was  systematically  laid  upon  each  prisoner  to  provide  strong 
drink  for  the  jail,  that  the  worst  criminals  were  mingled  with 
the  debtors,  and  that  a  tyranny  not  less  brutal  than  that  of 
the  Fleet,  was  exercised  by  the  jailer.  One  wretched  man, 
crippled  by  a  broken  leg,  was  left  for  two  months  in  a  bed  to 
which  the  water  frequently  rose,  and  whicli  rotted  away  beneath 
him.^  In  most  large  prisons  the  jail  fever,  produced  by  squalor, 
overcrowding,  bad  di-ainage,  insufficient  nourishment,  and  in- 
sufficient exercise,  made  fearful  ravages,  and  sometimes,  by  a 
righteous  retribution,  it  spread  from  these  centres  through  the 
rest  of  the  community.  This  evil  was  already  noticed  in  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centm-ies.  The  'Black  Assize'  at  Oxford, 
in  1577,  was  long  remembered,  when  the  Chief  Baron,  the  Sheriff, 
and  about  300  men  died  within  forty  hours.  Bacon  described  the 
jail  fever  as  '  the  most  pernicious  infection  next  to  the  plague, 
.  .  .  whereof  we  have  had  in  our  time  experience  twice  or  thrice, 
when  both  the  judges  that  sat  upon  the  jail,  and  numbers  of 
those  who  attended  the  business,  or  were  present,  sickened  and 
died.'     In  1730  Chief  Baron  Pengelly,  Serjeant  Shippen,  and 

'  Howell's     State     Tnals,      xvii.  enumerated   many  of  the   atrocities 

Pai-l.    Hi.vt.   viii.  70S-753.      Nichol's  in  the   Dublin  prison.     He  has  Jifft 

lAfe  of  Hogai-th,  p.   It).     Historical  mentioned    that   the   inquiry   which 

Jleijifin;    1720.     Wright's     Memoirs  revealed  them  was  a  consequence  of 

of   Oqlethorpe.    Andrew's  Eighteenth  the  discovery  of  similar  atrocities  in 

Century,    pp.    294-298.     Mr.    Fruude  the  principal  prisons  of  England. 
(^English  in  Ireland,  i.  591-592)  has 


544  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  in. 

many  others,  were  killed  by  jail  fever  when  attending  the  Dorset- 
shire Assizes,  and  the  High  Sheriff  of  Somersetshire  perished 
through  the  same  cause.  In  the  Scotch  rebellion  no  less  than 
200  men  in  a  single  regiment  were  infected  by  some  deserters. 
The  army  and  navy,  indeed,  through  the  operation  of  the  press- 
gang,  which  seized  numbers  just  released  from  prison,  was 
peculiarly  exposed  to  the  contagion,  and  it  was  said  by  a  good 
judge,  that  the  mortality  produced  by  the  jail  fever  was  greater 
than  that  produced  by  all  other  causes  combined.  In  1750  the 
disease  raged  to  such  an  extent  in  Newgate  that  at  the  Old 
Bailey  Assizes  two  judges,  the  Lord  Mayor,  an  alderman,  and 
many  of  inferior  rank  were  its  victims.  From  that  time  sweet- 
smelling  herbs  were  always  placed  in  the  prisoner's  dock  to 
counteract  the  contagion.^ 

Something  was  done  by  new  prison  regulations,  and  by  the 
removal  and  prosecution  of  some  of  the  worst  oflfenders,  to  remedy 
the  evil;  but  still  the  condition  of  the  prisons  continued  till  a 
much  later  period  a  disgrace  to  English  civilisation.  The 
miseries  of  the  imprisoned  debtor  were  commemorated  in  the 
poetry  of  Thomson,  and  by  the  pencil  of  Hogarth,  and  they 
furnished  the  subject  of  some  of  the  most  pathetic  pages  of 
Fielding  and  Smollett.  As  late  as  1741  it  was  announced  that 
two  prisoners  had  died  of  extreme  want  in  the  Marshalsea  in 
Dublin,  and  that  several  others  were  reduced  to  the  verge  of  star- 
vation.2  j^^  1759  j)x,  Johnson  computed  the  number  of 
imprisoned  debtors  at  not  less  than  20,000,^  and  asserted  that 
one  of  four  died  every  year  from  the  treatment  they  underwent. 

The  exposure  of  the  abuses  in  the  English  prisons  by  no 
means  exhausted  the  philanthropic  energies  of  Oglethorpe. 
Like  Berkeley,  his  imagination  was  directed  towards  the  West, 
and  he  conceived  the  idea  of  founding  a  colony  in  which  poor 
debtors  on  attaining  their  freedom  might  find  a  refuge.   A  charter 

1  Homard  on  Prisons,  Introduction.  ^  Idler,  No.  38.  Johnson  afterwards. 
Lawrence's  Life  of  Fielding,  pp.  296-  in  reprinting  tlie  Idle}-,  admitted  tlmt 
297.  he  had  found  reasons  to  .question  the 

2  Dublin    Gazette,    March    17-21,  accuracy  of  this  calculation. 
1740-41. 


CH.  III.  LATER  CAEEER   OF   OGLETHORPE.  545 

was  obtained  in  1732.  Private  subscriptions  flowed  laigely  in, 
and  with  the  consent  of  Berkeley  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of 
some  lands,  wliich  Parliament  had  voted  for  the  Bermuda 
scheme,  were  appropriated  to  the  new  enterprise.  Early  in 
1733  the  colony  of  Georgia  was  founded,  and  Oglethorpe  for 
many  years  was  its  governor.  Besides  giving  a  refuge  to  needy 
classes  from  England  the  colony  was  intended  to  exercise  a 
civilising  and  missionary  influence  upon  the  surrounding  Indians; 
and  in  its  charter  Oglethorpe  inserted  a  most  memorable  clause, 
absolutely  prohibiting  the  introduction  of  slaves.  Georgia 
became  a  centre  of  the  Moravian  sect,  the  scene  of  the  early 
labours  of  the  Wesleys,  and  afterwards  of  Whitefield,  and  the 
asylum  of  many  of  the  poor  Protestants  who  had  been  driven, 
on  account  of  their  religion,  from  the  bishopric  of  Salzbm*g. 
The  administration  of  Oglethorpe  was  marred  by  some  faults 
of  temper  and  of  tact,  but  it  was  on  the  whole  able,  ener- 
getic, and  fortunate.  When  hostilities  broke  out  with  Spain 
he  conducted  the  war  with  brilliant  courage  and  success,  and  he 
succeeded  in  materially  diminishing  the  atrocities  which  had 
hitherto  accompanied  Indian  warfare.  He  became  a  general 
and  served  in  the  Jacobite  rebellion  of  1745,  but  was  repulsed 
with  some  loss  at  the  village  of  Clifton ;  and  though  acquitted 
by  a  court  of  inquiry,  his  conduct  during  this  campaign  threw  a 
certain  shadow  over  his  military  reputation.  He  succeeded,  in 
1749,  in  carrying  through  Parliament  a  Bill  exempting  the 
Mora\aans  in  England  from  the  necessity  of  violating  their 
religious  sentiments  by  taking  oaths  or  bearing  arms.  He  was 
one  of  the  first  men  who  recognised  the  rising  genius  of  Johnson ; 
and  in  his  old  age  he  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Johnson,  Gold- 
smith, and  Burke.  His  singularly  varied  and  useful  life  termi- 
nated in  1785.' 

With  these  exceptions,  probably  the  only  considerable  trace 

'  Wright's  Ufe  of  Oglethorpe.  See,  one  driven  bv  strong  benevolence  of  foul 

too,    the    many    allusions    to   him   in  Shall  fly  like  Oglethorpe  from  pole  to  pole. 

BoSWell's  J«A«S««.     II.  Walpole  always  Imitalionof  Horuce,Y.i^.\\. 

depreciates  Oglethorpe.  Pope  has  See,  too,  Wesley's  Journal  and  Tyer- 
devoted  a  well-known  couplet  to  him.      man's  Life  of  Wesley. 

VOL.1.  gg 


546  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

of  warm  and  disinterested  philanthropy  in  the  sphere  of  politics 
during  the  period  I  am  describing  was  the  vote  of  100,000^. 
in  1755  for  the  relief  of  the  distressed  Portuguese,  after  the 
great  earthquake  at  Lisbon.  In  no  respect  does  the  legislation 
of  this  period  present  a  more  striking  contrast  to  that  of  the 
nineteenth  century  than  in  the  almost  complete  absence  of 
attempts  to  alleviate  the  social  condition  of  the  poorer  classes, 
or  to  soften  the  more  repulsive  featm-es  of  English  life.  The 
public  press  had  not  yet  undertaken  that  minute  and  searching 
investigation  into  abuses,  which  is  the  most  useful  of  all  its 
functions ;  and  the  general  level  of  humanity  in  the  community 
was  little,  if  at  all,  higher  than  in  the  preceding  generation. 
The  graphic  and  terrible  picture  which  is  given  in  '  Eoderick 
Eandom'  of  the  hardships  endured  by  the  common  sailors  on 
board  a  man-of-war,  was  derived  from  the  actual  experience  of 
the  author,  when  serving  in  1741  as  surgeon's  mate  in  the  ex- 
pedition against  Carthagena' ;  and  those  who  read  it  will  hardly 
wonder  that  it  was  found  impossible  in  time  of  war  to  man  the 
royal  navy  without  having  constant  recoui'se  to  the  press-gang.^ 
The  condition  of  the  army  was  little  better.  It  appears  from  a 
memorial  drawn  up  in  1707  that  the  garrison  of  Portsmouth 
was  reduced  by  death  or  desertion  to  half  its  former  number 
in  less  than  a  year  and  a  half,  through  sickness,  want  of  firing, 
and  bad  barracks,  and  the  few  new  barracks  that  were  erected 
were  built  with  the  most  scandalous  parsimony,  and  crowded  to 
the  most  frightful  excess.^     The  African  slave-trade  was  still  an 

'  That  it   is  not   exaggerated  is  a  reserve  of  3,000  seamen,  who  were 

abundantly  shown  by  Lind's  Essaij  on  to  receive  a  pension  in  time  of  peace, 

the  Health  of  Seamen,  which  was  Urst  and  to  be  called  into  active  ser\'ice 

published  in  1757.     This  author  says  in  time  of    war ;   but  the   Bill   was 

(ch.i.), 'I  have  known  1,000  men  con-  violently     opposed     and    eventually 

lined  together  in  a  guardship,  some  dropped  (Coxes  Life  of  Pelluim,  ii. 

hundreds  of  whom  had  neither  a  bed  66-70).  A  somewhat  similar  measure, 

nor  so  much  as  a  change  of  linen.     I  but  on  a  larger  scale,  had  actually 

have  seen  many  of    them    brought  passed    under   William,   but    it  was 

into  hospital  in  the  same  clothes  and  repealed  in  the  ninth  year  of   Anne 

shirts    they    had    on    when   pressed  (Macpherson's  Annals  of  Commerce, 

several  months  before.'  ii.  683). 

^  Pelham,  in  1749,  endeavoured  to  ^  Clode's   Military  Forces  of   the 

abolish  impressment  by  maintaining  Crown,  i.  222. 


CH.  in.  PUBLIC  EXECUTIONS.  547 

important  branch  of  British  enterprise.  A  few  isolated  voices, 
as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  had  been  raised  against  it,  but  they 
had  as  yet  made  no  sensible  impression  on  the  public  mind,  and 
no  less  a  statesman  than  the  elder  Pitt  made  its  development 
a  main  object  of  his  policy.  The  penal  code  was  not  only 
atrociously  sanguinary  and  continually  aggravated  by  the  addi- 
tion of  new  offences ;  it  was  also  executed  in  a  manner  pecu- 
liarly fitted  to  brutalise  the  people.  In  some  respects,  it  is 
true,  it  may  be  compared  favom-ably  with  tlie  criminal  pro- 
cedures of  the  Continent.  English  law  knew  nothing  of  torture 
or  of  arbitrary  imprisonment,  or  of  the  barbarous  punishment 
of  the  wheel,  and  no  English  executions  Avere  quite  so  horrible 
as  those  which  took  place  in  the  Cevennes  in  the  early  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  or  as  the  prolonged  and  hideous  agonies 
which  Damiens  endured  for  several  hours,  in  1757.  But  this 
is  about  all  that  can  be  said.  Executions  in  England  till  very 
lately  have  been  a  favourite  public  spectacle — it  may  almost 
be  said  a  public  amusement — and  in  the  last  century  every- 
thing seemed  done  to  make  the  people  familiar  with  their 
most  frightful  aspects.  A  ghastly  row  of  heads  of  the  rebels 
of  1745  mouldered  along  the  top  of  Temple  Bar.  Gallows 
were  erected  in  every  important  quarter  of  the  city,  and  on 
many  of  them  corpses  were  left  rotting  in  chains.  When  Black- 
stone  wrote,  there  were  no  less  than  1 60  offences  in  England 
punishable  with  death,  and  it  was  a  very  ordinary  occurrence 
for  ten  or  twelve  culprits  to  be  hung  on  a  single  occasion,  for 
forty  or  fifty  to  be  condemned  at  a  single  assize.  In  1732  no 
less  than  seventy  persons  received  sentence  of  death  at  the  Old 
Bailey,'  and  in  the  same  year  we  find  no  less  than  eighteen 
persons  hung  in  one  day  in  the  not  very  considerable  town  of 
Cork.^  Often  the  criminals  staggered  intoxicated  to  the  gal- 
lows, and  some  of  the  most  noted  were  exhibited  for  money  by 

'  Andrews'  Eiglvteenth  Centuiij,  p.  258  ;     and    for    an    almost    equally 

271.  striking  instance  in  1787  at  Worcester, 

"^  Dublin    Weekly   Journal,   April  Robert's  Social  Hist,  of  tlw  Souzhern 

22,  1732.    See,  too,  Madden's  Hist,  of  Counties,  p.  152. 
JTeriodical  Literature  in   Ireland,  i. 


548  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  in. 

the  turnkeys  before  their  execution.  No  less  than  2001.  are 
said  to  have  been  made  in  this  manner  in  a  few  days  when 
Sheppard  was  prisoner  in  Newgate. ^  Dr.  Dodd,  the  unhappy 
clero-yman  who  was  executed  for  forgery,  was  exhibited  for  two 
hours  in  the  press-room  at  a  shilling  a-head  before  he  was  led 
to  the  gallows.^ 

'  The  executions  of  criminals,'  wrote  a  Swiss  traveller  in 
the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  'return  every  six 
weeks  regularly  with  the  sessions.  The  criminals  pass  through 
the  streets  in  carts,  dressed  in  their  best  clothes,  with  white 
gloves  and  nosegays,  if  it  be  the  season.  Those  that  die  merrily 
or  that  don't  at  least  show  any  great  fear  of  death,  are  said  to 
die  like  gentlemen ;  and  to  merit  this  encomium  most  of  them 
die  like  beasts,  without  any  concern,  or  like  fools,  having  no 
other  view  than  to  divert  the  crowd.  .  .  .  Though  there  is  some- 
thing very  melancholy  in  this,  yet  a  man  cannot  well  forbear 
laughing  to  see  these  rogues  set  themselves  off  as  heroes  by  an 

affectation  of  despising  death The  frequent  executions, 

the  great  numbers  that  suffer  together,  and  the  applauses  of 
the  crowd,  may  contribute  something  to  it,  and  the  brandy 
which  they  swallow  before  their  setting  out  helps  to  stun 
them.'  ^  Women  who  were  found  guilty  of  murdering  their 
husbands,  or  of  the  other  offences  comprised  under  the  terms 
high  or  petit  treason,  were  publicly  burnt,  by  a  law  which 
was  not  abolished  till  1790.'*  A  stake  ten  or  eleven  feet  high 
was  planted  in  the  ground.  An  iron  ring  was  fastened  near 
the  top,  and  from  it  the  culprit  was  hung  while  the  faggots 
were  kindled  under  her  feet.  The  law  enjoined  that  she  should 
be  burnt  alive,  but  in  practice  the  sentence  was  usually  miti- 

'  Harris's   Zife  of  Hardwicke,  i.  and  different  from  that  of  men.     For 

P-  lp8.  as  the   natural  modesty  of   the  sex 

-  Public      Ledge);      quoted      by  forbids   the    exposing    and  publicly 

Andrew.s,  p.  281.  mangling  their  bodies,  their  sentence 

^  Muralt's  Letters  on  the  English  (which  is  to   the   full  as  terrible  to 

Nation  (English  trans.  1726),  pp.  42-  the  sense  as  the  other)  is,  to  be  drawn 

^*'  to  the  gallows  and  there  to  be  burnt 

♦  '  In  treasons  of  every  kind  the  alive.'— Blackstojie,  iv,  ch.  6. 
punishment  of  women  is  the  same, 


CH.  III.  BRUTAL  PUNISHMENTS.  549 

gated,  and  she  was  strangled  before  the  fire  touched  her 
body.  A  horrible  case,  however,  occurred  in  1726  at  the  exe- 
cution of  a  murderess  named  Katherine  Hayes.  The  fire 
scorching  the  hands  of  the  executioner,  he  slackened  the  rope 
before  he  strangled  her,  and  though  fresh  faggots  were  hastily 
piled  up,  a  considerable  time  elapsed  before  her  agonies  were 
terminated,'  The  law  which  condemned  a  man  guilty  of  high 
treason  to  be  cut  down  when  half  hung,  to  be  disembowelled, 
and  to  have  his  bowels  burnt  before  his  face,  was  still  executed 
in  ghastly  detail.^  The  law  which  condemned  a  prisoner  who 
refused  to  plead  on  a  capital  charge  to  be  laid  naked  on  his 
back  in  a  dark  room,  while  weights  of  stone  or  iron  were  placed 
on  liis  breast  till  he  was  slowly  pressed  to  death,  was  enforced 
in  England  in  1721  and  in  1735,  and  in  Ireland  as  late  as 
1740.  A  criminal  was  sentenced  in  England  to  the  same  fate 
in  1741,  but  he  at  last  consented  to  plead  ;  and  the  law  was 
not  repealed  till  1771.^  The  punishment  of  the  pillory,  which 
was  very  common,  seemed  specially  adapted  to  encourage  the 
brutality  of  the  populace,  and  there  are  several  instances  of  cul- 
prits who  perished  from  the  usage  they  underwent.  Men,  and 
even  women,  were  still  whipped  publicly  at  the  tail  of  a  cart 

•  Andrews,  p.  279.     See  too,  her  into  the  fire,  which  consumed  them  ; 

life,  in  The  Lives  of  Eminent  Criminals  then  he  slashed  his  four  quarters  and 

executed  between  1720  and  1735.  put  them  with  the  head  into  a  coffin.' 

^  See  Andievis'  MghteenthCentnry,  '  Andrews,  pp.  285-286.  The  last 
p.  281.  Eight  persons  guilty  of  hold-  case  is  from  the  Umrcrml  Spectator, 
ing  commissions  in  the  army  of  the  .  Sept.  174:1.  '  On  Tuesday,  was  sen- 
Pretender,  were  executed  in  1746  on  tenced  to  death  at  the  Old  Bailey, 
Kenningt  on  Common.  The  St  ate  T)-iah  Henry  Cook,  shoemaker,  of  Stratford, 
(xviii.  351)  give  the  following  descrip-  for  robbing  Mr.  Zachary  on  the  high- 
tion  of  the  execution  of  Mr.  Townle'y,  way.  On  Cook's  refusing  to  plead 
who  was  one  of  them.  '  After  he  had  there  was  a  new  press  made  and  fixed 
hung  six  minutes  he  was  cut  down,  and,  in  the  proper  place  in  the  press-j'ard, 
.  having  life  in  him  as  he  lay  upon  the  there  having  been  no  person  pressed 
block  to  be  quartered,  the  executioner  since  the  famous  Spiggott,  the  high- 
gave  him  several  blows  on  his  breast,  wayman,  about  twenty  years  ago. 
which  not  having  the  effect  required,  Burnworth,  alias  Frazier,  was  pressed 
he  immediately  cut  his  throat;'  after  at  Kingston,  in  Surrey, about  sixteen 
which  he  took  his  head  off ;  then  years  ago.'  —  The  Irish  case  was  at 
ripped  him  open  and  took  out  his  Kilkenny.  Ma,ddeu,  PeriodicallAtei-a- 
bowels  and  heart  and  threw  them  tare,  i.  p.  274. 


550  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

through  the  streets,  and  the  flogging  of  women  in  England  was 
only  abolished  in  1820.' 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  institutions  and  manners  of  the 
country  were  steadily  assuming  their  modern  aspect.  From 
the  ministry  of  Walpole  the  House  of  Commons  had  become 
indisputably  the  most  powerful  body  in  the  State.  Then  it  was 
that  the  post  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  came  to  be  univers- 
ally recognised  as  the  head  of  the  Grovernment.  Then  it  was  that 
the  forms  of  parliamentary  procedure  were  in  many  respects 
definitely  fixed.  In  1730  the  absurd  practice  of  drawing  up 
the  written  pleadings  in  the  law  courts  in  Latin  was  abolished, 
in  spite  of  the  strenuous  opposition  of  the  Chief  Justice  Lord 
Kaymond.'^  The  last  impeachment  of  a  Prime  Minister  was 
that  of  Walpole  ;  the  last  battle  fought  on  British  soil  was  in 
the  rebellion  of  1745.  The  last  traces  of  the  old  exemptions 
from  the  dominion  of  the  law  were  removed  by  the  abolition 
of  hereditary  jurisdictions  in  Scotland,  and  of  the  right  of  sanc- 
tuary in  London ;  and  the  most  conspicuous  sign  of  the  insular 
spirit  of  the  nation  disappeared  when  England  consented  to 
adopt  the  same  calendar  as  the  most  civilised  nations  on  the 
Continent. 

It  was  at  this  time,  also,  that  the  modern  military  system 
was  firmly  established.  An  aversion  to  a  standing  ai-my  in  time 
of  peace  had  long  been  one  of  the  strongest  of  English  senti- 
ments, and  it  was  one  in  which  both  the  great  parties  of  the 
State  cordially  concurred.  The  Tories  were  never  weary  of 
dilating  upon  the  military  despotism  of  Cromwell,  which  had 

'  See  the  very  large  collection  of  'SichoVs  Memoirs  of  HbffariTiy-pi).  190- 

passages  from   old   newspapers  and  191.     Johnson  wrote  a  very  humane 

magazines,    illustrating    the     penal  and    sensible     protest    against    the 

system  in  England,  in  Andrews' ^-j<7A-  multiplication    of     capital    ofEences, 

teenth    Centuinj,   and  in    that  great  i?«77(6Ze?',  No.  114,  and  Fielding  in  his 

repository    of    curious    information  Causes    of    the   Increase  of   Bobbers 

Notes  and  Queries.  See,  too.  Knight's  advocated   private  executions.     The 

London,  Cowper's  Hist,  of  the  Rod,  public  whipping  of  women  in  Eng- 

and    Madden 's    Hist,    of    Periodical  land  was  abolished  in  1817,  the  pri- 

Literature    in    Ireland.     For    cases  vate  whipping  only  in  1820. 

of  criminals  being  killed  by  the  ill-  =  Campbell's   Lives  of  the  CImh- 

usage  they  underwent  in  the  pillory,  cellors,  vi.  119-120. 
see   Prior's  Life    of   Burke,   i.   367 ; 


CH.  III.  GROWTH   OF  STANDING  ARMIES  5Jl 

left  an  indelible  impression  on  the  mind  of  the  nation,  \vliile  the 
army  of  30,000  men  which  James  liad  maintained  witliuut  the 
consent  of  Parliament  fumislied  one  of  the  gravest  Whig  charges 
against  that  sovereign.     Of  all  tlie  measm-es  that  accompanied 
the  Restoration,  none  had  been  more  popular  than  the  disband- 
ment  of  the  army  of  Cromwell ;  but  soon  after,  a  conflict  began 
between  the  Crown  and  the  Legislature,  which  continually  re-, 
curred  with  aggravated  severity  up  to  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tion.    The  last  two  Stuart  sovereigns  aimed  at  the  maintenance, 
in   time  of  peace,  of  a  considerable  military  force  altogether 
subject  to  their  control.     They  governed  it  by  articles  of  war. 
They  assumed,  or  claimed  as  part  of  their  prerogative,  a  power 
unknown  to  the  law,  of  administering  justice,  and  inflicting 
punishments  on  their  soldiers  by  courts-martial ;  and  James,  in 
defiance   of  the   Test   Act,  had    bestowed  numerous    military 
commands  upon  Catholics.     The  steady  policy  of  Parliament, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  to  develop  the  militia,  which  it  was 
assumed  could  never  become  inimical  to  the  liberties  of  Eng- 
land ;  to  insist  upon  the  disbandment,  in  time  of  peace,  of  the 
whole  army,  except,  perhaps,  a  body-guard  for  the  King  and 
garrisons   for   the   forts;    and   to   maintain   the  exclusion    of 
Catholics  from  commands,  and  the  principle  that  punishments 
in  time  of  peace  could  only  be  inflicted  by  order  of  the  civil 
magistrate.     Ihe  great  part   which  this  conflict  had  in  pre- 
paring the  Revolution  is  well  known  ;  and  an  article  of  the  Bill 
of  Rights  expressly  provided  that,  without  the  consent  of  Par- 
liament, the  raising  or  keeping  of  a  standing  army  within  the 
kingdom  was  illegal.     It  soon,  however,  became  evident  to  all 
sagacious  observers  that  a  considerable  army  was  indispensable 
if  England  were  ever  to  engage  in  a  land  war  with  Continental 
nations.     The  French  army,  wliich  under  Henry  IV.  consisted 
of  1 4,000  men,  amounted,  after  the  Peace  of  Nimegue,  to  no 
less  than  140,000  ; '  and  before  the  close  of  his  reign  Lewis  XIV. 
is  said  to  have  had  as  many  as  360,000  men  at  one  time  under 
arms.     The  Emperor  Charles  VI.  employed  170,000  soldiers  in 

'  Heeren. 


552  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

the  war  of  1733.  The  Prussian  army,  on  the  accession  of 
PVederick  the  Great,  consisted  of  76,000  men  ;  and  every  petty 
German  ruler  was  augmenting  his  forces.  The  genius  of 
Parma,  Turenne,  Conde,  and  Vauban  transformed  the  art 
of  war,  and  every  improvement  made  a  hastily  levied  militia 
more  helpless  before  a  disciplined  army.  Vauban  and  Cohorn 
may  almost  be  said  to  have  created  the  art  of  attacking 
and  defending  fortresses.  Mining  acquired  a  prominence  in 
warfare,  and  was  conducted  with  a  skill  formerly  utterly  un- 
known. Transportable  copper  pontoons  for  crossing  rivers  were 
invented  by  the  French  in  1672.  The  invention  of  the  fixed 
bayonet  has  been  attributed  both  to  Mackay  and  to  Vauban ; 
and  the  Prussian  infantry  attained  a  perfection  in  manoeuvring 
and  a  rapidity  in  firing  which  made  every  battalion  a  walking 
battery,  and  was  speedily  copied  in  the  rest  of  Europe.' 

All  these  changes,  by  giving  a  new  perfection  to  the  art  of 
war,  made  it  evident  that  the  time  had  arrived  when  a  con- 
siderable permanent  body  of  highly  trained  soldiers  was  necessary 
for  the  security  of  the  State  ;  and  that  necessity  in  England  was 
still  more  felt  on  account  of  the  perpetual  fear  of  a  Jacobite 
insurrection.  But  a  permanent  army  could  not  exist  unless 
adequate  means  were  provided  for  preserving  its  discipline, 
especially  at  a  time  when  the  dispositions  of  the  troops  were 
doubtful  or  divided.  The  declaration  of  800  soldiers  at  Ipswich 
in  favour  of  James  in  1689  produced  the  first  Mutiny  Act,  which 
was  enacted  for  six  months,  and  which  enabled  courts-martial  to 
punish  mutiny  and  desertion  by  death.^  The  press-gang  soon 
came  into  use,  and  it  was  much  employed  in  time  of  war  as  a 
kind  of  irregular  police  ;  suspected  criminals,  or  notorious  bad 
characters,  against  whom  no  definite  charge  could  be  proved, 
being  in  this  manner  draughted  in  great  numbers  into  the  army. 
An  Act  of  Anne  gave  justices  of  the  peace  express  power  to  levy 
as  soldiers  such  able-bodied  men  in  their  districts  as  had  '  no 

'  Frederick  JI.,  Memoires  de  mon       420-421.  Lord  Harvey's  ilfeM2M>«,i.  86. 
Temps.     See,  too,  for  other  military  «  Macaulay's  Hist. 

statistics,  Ranke's  Hist,  of  Prussia,  i. 


CH,  m.  THE  MUTINY  ACT.  553 

lawful  callintj^  or  employment,  or  visible  means  for  their  main- 
tenance or  livelihood.'  ^ 

There  are  few  more  curious  pages  in  English  history 
than  the  slow  and  gradual  change  of  public  opinion  on  the 
subject  of  standing  armies.  For  more  than  half  a  century  the 
battle  continued  with  almost  unabated  violence,  and  a  century 
had  elapsed  before  it  altogether  subsided.  The  Mutiny  Act  was 
regarded  as  a  purely  temporary  contrivance,  but  it  was  soon  felt 
by  most  experienced  men  that  it  was  impossible  to  govern  the 
army  if  military  insubordination  or  desertion  were  treated  as 
mere  breaches  of  contract,  and  were  punishable  only  by  the  civil 
courts.  The  Mutiny  Act  was  accordingly  re-enacted,  sometimes 
for  six  months,  more  frequently  for  a  year,  but  it  was  long 
before  it  was  recognised  as  permanently  necessary.  In  the 
reigns  of  William  and  Anne  there  were  several  periods — one  of 
them  lasting  for  more  than  two  years — in  which  it  was  not 
in  force,  and  its  invariable  enactment  dates  only  from  George  I. 
Its  opponents  dwelt  upon  the  danger  of  severing  by  a  special 
code  of  laws  the  members  of  the  army  from  their  fellow  citizens, 
and  of  tampering  with  the  great  constitutional  principle  that 
tlie  civil  magistrate  in  time  of  peace  should  have  sole  jurisdiction 
for  the  suppression  of  crime ;  and  they  urged  that  to  permit 
the  sovereign,  of  his  own  authority,  to  establish  articles  of  war, 
and  erect  courts-martial  for  enforcing  them,  was  to  vest  a  sole 
legislative  power  in  the  Crown.  On  these  grounds  Windham  and 
Shippen,  at  the  head  of  the  Tory  party,  strenuously  opposed  the 
Mutiny  Act.  Walpole  took  the  same  course,  when  he  was  in  oppo- 
sition to  Stanhope,  and  his  saying  that '  he  who  gives  the  power 
of  blood  gives  blood'  was  continually  quoted  by  its  opponents.  In 
1717  the  power  of  inflicting  capital  punishment  by  sentence  of 
courtr-martial  on  deserters  and  mutineers  was  only  carried  by  247  to 
229,'  and  most  of  the  extensions  which  the  Act  underwent  were 
fiercely  contested.  The  Act  of  1689  provided  only  for  the  punish- 
ment of  mutiny  and  desertion,  without  exempting  any  oflBcer  or 

'  3  &  4  Anne,  ch.  11. 

*  See  the  remarkable  account  of  the  debate  in  Tindal. 


554:  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

soldier  from  the  ordinary  processes  of  law,  and  its  operation  was 
restricted  to  the  regular  army  and  to  England.    The  scope  of  the 
Act  was  gradually  .extended  to  Jersey  and  Guernsey,  to  Ireland, 
and  at  length  to  the  whole  dominion  of  the  Crown.  The  Mutiny 
Act  of  1713,  which  was  the  first  passed  in  time  of  peace,  gave 
courts-martial  no  power  to  award  a  capital  sentence,  and  this 
incapacity  continued  till  the  rebellion  of  1715.    Under  George  I. 
the  Crown  for  the  first  time  obtained  an  express  and  formal 
authority  to  constitute,  under  royal  sign  manual,  articles  of  war 
for  the  government  of  the  army,  and  to  enforce  their  penalties 
by  courts-martial.     The  articles  of  war  of  1717  made  provision 
for  the  trial  of  ordinary  civil  offences  by  courts-martial,  and  the 
Mutiny  Act  declared  that  acquittal  or  conviction  should  be  a 
bar  to  all  fmther  indictment  for  the  same  offence.     In   1728, 
however,  a  question  arose  whether  the  articles  of  war  which 
emanated  from  the  sovereign  alone,  could  create  capital  offences 
unknown  to  the  law,  and  the  Attorney-General   advised   the 
Government  that  while  the  power  of  inflicting  other  penalties 
by  those  articles  was  unrestricted,  no  sentence  extending  to  life 
or  limb  could  be  imposed  by  court-martial  except  for  offences 
enumerated  in,  and  made  so  punishable  by,  the  Mutiny  Act ; 
and  a  clause  to  this  effect  has  been  inserted  in  every  Mutiny 
Act  since  1748.     In  1748,  too,  an  oath  of  secrecy  was  first  im- 
posed upon  the  members  of  courts-martial  forbidding  them  to 
divulge  the  sentence  till  approved,  or  the  votes  of  any  member 
unless  required  by  Parliament.  The  position  of  half-pay  officers 
was  long  and  vehemently  discussed.     It  was  contended  by  the 
Government  that  they  were  subject  to  the  Mutiny  Act,  but  the 
opinions  of  the  judges  were  divided  on  the  question.     A  special 
clause  making  them  liable  was  inserted  in  the  Act  of  1747,  but 
it  was  withdraAvn  in  1749,  and  in   1785  their  exemption  was 
decided.    In  1754  the  operation  of  the  Mutiny  Act  was  extended 
to  the  troops  of  the  East  India  Company  serving  in  India,  and 
to  the  king's  troops  serving  in  North  America,  as  weU  as  to 
local  troops  serving  with  them.     In  1756  the  militia,  when  called 
out  for  active  service,  were  brought  under  its  provisions ;  and  in 


CH.  III.  THE  MUTINY  ACT.  556 

1788,  in  spite  of  the  strong  opposition  of  Fox  and  Sheridan,  the 
corps  of  sappers  and  miners  was  included  in  the  same  cate- 
gory.' 

The  extreme  distrust  with  which  this  department  of  legisla- 
tion was  regarded  is  shown  by  the  strong  opposition  that  was 
aroused  over  almost  all  the  questions  I  have  enumerated.  The 
first  volume  of  the  Commentaries  of  Blackstone  was  published 
as  late  as  1765,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  even  at  this  date  that 
great  lawyer  spoke  with  the  strongest  apprehension  of  the 
dangers  to  liberty  arising  from  the  Mutiny  Act.  He  maintained 
that  the  condition  of  the  army  was  that  of  absolute  servitude  ;  and 
he  argued  that  every  free  and  prudent  nation  should  endeavour 
to  prevent  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  the  midst  of  it ;  that 
if  it  has  unhappily  been  introduced,  arms  should  at  least  never 
be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  slaves,  and  that  no  policy  could 
be  more  suicidal  than  to  deprive  of  the  liberties  of  the  constitu- 
tion the  very  men  who  are  at  the  last  resort  entrusted  with  their 
defence.^  But  whatever  plausibility  there  may  be  in  such 
reasoning,  it  will  now  hardly  be  disputed  that  a  body  of 
many  thousands  of  armed  men,  whose  prompt  and  unreasoning 
obedience  is  of  the  utmost  moment  to  the  State,  cannot  be  per- 
manently governed  by  the  mild  and  tardy  processes  of  law 
which  are  applicable  to  civilians.  Military  insubordination  is 
so  grave  and,  at  the  same  time,  so  contagious  a  disease,  that  it 
requires  the  promptest  and  most  decisive  remedies  to  prevent  it 
from  leading  to  anarchy.  By  retaining  a  strict  control  over  the 
pay  and  over  the  numbers  of  the  soldiers,  by  limiting  each 
Mutiny  Act  to  a  single  year,  and  by  entrusting  its  carriage 
through  the  House  to  a  civil  minister,  who  is  responsible  for  its 
provisions.  Parliament  has  very  effectually  guarded  against 
abuses  ;  and  the  army,  since  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth,  has 
never  been  inimical  to  the  liberties  of  England. 

The  jealousy  that  was  felt  about  the  Mutiny  Act  extended 

'  See,  for  the  origin  of  the  Mutiny       Clode's  Military  Forces  of  the  Crorvn, 
Act,  Macaulay's  Hist,  of  England,  ch,       vol.  i. 
xi.,  and  for  its  subsequent  history,  *  Blackstone,  book  i.  ch.  13. 


556  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  m. 

to  other  parts  of  military  administration.  After  the  Peace  of 
Ryswick,  Parliament  insisted  on  reducing  the  forces  to  10,000 
men  or  about  a  third  part  of  what  William  considered  necessary 
for  the  security  of  the  State  ;  and  during  the  greater  part  of  the 
first  two  Hanoverian  reigns  there  was  an  annual  conflict  about 
the  number  of  the  forces.  In  1717  Walpole  himself,  being  at 
this  time  in  Opposition,  was  prominent  in  urging  their  reduc- 
tion from  16,000  to  12,000  men.  During  his  own  administra- 
tion the  army  in  time  of  peace  was  usually  about  17,000  men. 
The  terror  which  was  produced  by  the  Scotch  invasion  of  1745, 
the  frequent  alarms  of  a  French  invasion,  the  popularity  of  the 
wars  of  the  elder  Pitt,  and  the  great  extension  of  the  empire 
resulting  from  his  conquests,  gradually  led  to  increased  arma- 
ments ;  nor  was  the  growth  of  the  regular  army  seriously  checked 
by  the  organisation,  between  ?757  and  1763,  of  a  national 
militia.  In  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  num- 
ber of  soldiers  in  Parliament  was  much  complained  of,  and 
some  unsuccessful  efforts  were  made  to  diminish  it.^  Walpole 
desired  to  avail  himself  of  the  military  as  of  other  forms 
of  patronage  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying  his  supporters  and 
thus  securing  his  parliamentary  majority ;  but  George  II.,  to  his 
great  credit,  steadily  refused  to  allow  the  army  to  be  dragged 
into  the  vortex  of  corruption,^  though  he  consented  to  deprive  the 

'  In    1741  some  members  of  the  tion  of  the  present  Parliament.  .  .  . 

House  of  Lords  drewup  a  very  remark-  The  number  of  officers  in  Parliament 

able  proteston  this  subject.  After  com-  has  gradually  increased,  and  though 

plaining  of  the  increase  of  the  armj',  we  think  the  gentlemen  of  the  army 

and  of  the  formation  of  new  corps,  as  little  liable  to  undue  influence  as 

they  say :    '  We   apprehend  that  this  any  other  body  of  men,  yet  we  think 

method  of  augmentation  by  new  corps  it  would  be  very  imprudent  to  trust 

may  be  attended  with  consequences  the  very  fundamentals  of  our  Consti- 

fatal  in  time  to  our  Constitution,  by  in-  tution,  the   independency  of   Parlia- 

creasing  the  number  of  commissions  ments,   to   the    uncertain   effects   of 

which  may  be  disposed  of  with  regard  ministerial  favour  or  resentment.' — 

to  parliamentary  influence  only. . .  Our  Eogers"s  Protests  of  the  Lords,  ii.  1-6. 
distrust  of  the  motives  of  tliis  aug-  -  Walpole  himself  complained  to 

mentation  which  creates  at  once  370  Lord  Hervey, '  How  many  people  there 

officers  .  .  .  ought  to  be  the  greater  so  are  I  could  bind   to   me   by  getting 

near  the  election  of  a  new  parliament  things   done   in   the   army  you  may 

.  .  .  and  we   cannot  forget  that  an  imagine,  and   that  I  never   can  get 

augmentation  of  8,040  men  was  like-  any  one  thing  done  in  it  you  perhaps 

wise  made  the  very  year  of  the  elec-  will  not  believe ;  but  it  is  as  true  as 


CH.  III.  THE  STA^^)ING  AEMY.  557 

Duke  of  Bolton  and  Lord  Cobham  of  their  regiments  on  ac- 
count of  their  votes  against  the  excise  scheme.  A  Bill  was  at 
this  time  introduced  to  prevent  any  officer  above  the  rank  of 
colonel  from  being  thus  deprived,  except  by  a  court-martial  or  an 
address  from  one  House  of  Parliament.  Considering  the  great 
power  of  the  ministry  in  both  Houses,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
this  measure  should  have  been  defeated  by  large  majorities,  but 
it  is  a  very  remarkable  fact  that  it  should  have  been  extremely  un- 
popular. The  manner  in  which  Walpole  exercised  his  power  was 
very  scandalous.  The  desire  to  restrict  the  corrupt  influence 
of  the  Grovernment  was  very  strong,  and  the  excise  scheme  was 
generally  detested  ;  but  so  deep  and  so  lively  after  the  lapse  of 
more  than  seventy  years  was  the  hatred  of  military  government 
which  the  despotism  of  Cromwell  had  planted  in  the  nation 
that  it  was  sufficient  to  overpower  all  other  considerations.  It 
was  contended  that  the  measure  of  the  Opposition,  by  relaxing 
the  authority  of  the  civil  power  over  the  military  system  and 
by  aggrandising  that  of  the  courts-martial,  would  increase  the 
independence  and  the  strength  of  standing  armies,  and  in  conse- 
quence the  dangers  of  a  stratocracy ;  and  it  is  a  curious  and  well- 
attested  fact  that  it  very  seriously  impaired  the  popularity  of  the 
party  who  proposed  it.^ 

The  last  sign  that  may  be  noticed  of  the  unpopularity  of 
a  standing  army  was  the  extreme  reluctance  of  Parliament  to 
provide  barracks  adequate  for  its  accommodation.  In  Ireland, 
it  is  true,  which  was  governed  like  a  conquered  country,  a 
different  policy  was  pursued,  and  a  large  grant  for  their  erection 

that  there  is  an  army,  that  I  never  this  province  I  will  keep  to  myself."  ' 

ask  for  the  smallest  commission  by  — Lord  Hervey's  Memoirs,  ii.  381,  382. 

which  a  Member  of  Parliament  may  This  is   not   the   least   of   the  many 

'be  immediately  or  collaterally  obliged,  vmrecognised  services  of  George  II. 

that  the   King's  answer  is  not — "  I  to  the  country. 

won't  do  tliat  ;   you  want  always  to  '  Lord  Hervey's  Memoirs,  i.  282— 

have  me  disoblige  all  my  old  soldiers,  284.     Coxe's   Walpole,  i.  409.     Pari. 

you  understand   nothing  of    troops.  ^i\?#.  ix.  291.   William  had  positively 

I  will  order  my  army  as  I  think  fit  ;  refused  to  remove  Sir  G.  Rooke  from 

for  your  scoundrels  in  the  House  of  the  Admiralty  on  account  of  his  votes 

Commons  you  may  do  as  you  please  ;  in  the  House  of  Commons.     Wilson's 

you  know  I  never  interfere  nor  pre-  Life  of  Defoe,  i.  469. 
tend  to  know  anything  of  them,  but 


558  ENGLi^D  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  hi. 

wns  made  as  early  as  William  IIL,^  while  in  Scotland  they 
chiefly  date  from  the  rebellion  of  1715,  but  in  England  the ' 
barrack  accommodation   till  a   much  later  period  was  miser- 
ably insufficient.^     Even  at  the  time  when  the  army  had  ac- 
quired very  considerable  dimensions  the  majority  of  the  troops 
were  still   billeted   out   in  public-houses,  kept   under   canvas 
during  the   most   inclement  portions  of  the   year,  or  stowed 
away  in  barns  that  were  purchased  for  the  purpose.     Pulteney 
contended  that  the  very  fact  that  a  standing  army  in  quarters 
is  more  burdensome  than  a  standing  army  in  barracks  is  a  reason 
for  opposing  the  erection  of  the  latter,  lest  the  people  should 
grow   accustomed  to  the  yoke.^      '  The   people    of  this  king- 
dom,' said  General  Wade  in  1740,  '  have  been  taught  to  asso- 
ciate the  ideas  of  barracks  and  slavery,  like  darkness  and  the 
devil.'"     Blackstone,  in  1765,  sLrongly  maintained  that  the  sol- 
diers should  live  '  intermixed  with  the  people,'  and  that  '  no 
separate  camp,  no  barracks,no  inland  fortress,  should  be  allowed.'^ 
It  was  about  this  time,  however,  that  the  popular  jealousy  of 
the  army  began  first  perceptibly  to  decline.     In    1760   Lord 
Bath  published  a  pamphlet  which  is  in  more  than  one  respect 
very  remarkable,  but   which  is  especially  interesting  for  the 
evidence  it  furnishes  of  this  change.     He  complained  bitterly 
that  the  country  had  become  strangely  tolerant  of  a  far  larger 
peace  establishment  than  had  once  been  regarded  as  compatible 

'  Clode.  Chesterfield  appears  to  accession  to  the  throne,  to  ease  the 
have  contemplated  a  considerable  mul-  inhabitantsof  this  town  from  quarter- 
plication  of  barracks.  As  his  biogra-  ing  of  soldiers,  hath  built  a  fine 
pher  somewhat  strangely  says :  '  If  his  barrack  here  consisting  of  a  square 
Lordship  had  returned  to  Ireland  he  spacious  court  of  freestone.  .  .  .  These 
would  have  ordered  new  barracks  to  be  are  the  first  barracks  erected  in  Great 
built  in  those  parts  of  the  kingdom  Britain,  and  it  would  be  a  vast  ease 
which  are  not  amenable  to  the  laws  to  the  inhabitants  in  most  great 
of  the  country  By  this  jjj-ovisioti  he  towns  if  they  had  them  every- 
wiahed  to  make  the  inhabitants  know  where;  but  English  liberty  will  never 
tJiat  there  is  a  God,  a  king,  and  a  consent  to  what  will  seem  a  nest  for 
goxeinment.'—'Ma.ij's  Life  of  Chester-  a  standing  army.'— Macky's  Jow?-ney 
field,  p.  271.  through  Scotland  (1723),  pp.  24-25. 

2'  ciode's  Militanj  Forces,  i.  221-  '  Pari.  Hist.  xi.  1448. 

226.     A  writer  wlio  visited  Scotland  *  Ibid.  1442. 

about  1722,  speaking  of  Berwick-on-  ^  Book  i.  ch.  13. 

Tweed,  says :  '  King  George,  since  his 


CH.  III.  BARRACKS.  569 

with  the  security  of  the  Constitution ;  that  the  members  of  the 
great  families  were  beginning  to  enlist  in  large  numbers  in  the 
army,  not  only  in  time  of  war,  but  also  as  a  permanent  profes- 
sion in  time  of  peace  ;  and  that  the  erection  of  barracks,  which 
twenty  years  before  would  have  ruined  any  minister  who  proposed 
it,  was  now  accepted  without  serious  protest,  or  even  with  popu- 
lar applause.^  Still  the  old  feeling  of  distrust  was  not  wholly 
extinct.  The  scheme  of  fortification  proposed  by  the  younger 
Pitt,  in  1786,  was  rejected  on  the  ground  that  it  would  render 
necessary  and  would  provide  accommodation  for  a  larger 
standing  army  ;2  and  in  1792,  when  a  barrack  department  was 
instituted  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  barracks  throughout  the 
country,  a  considerable  opposition  was  shown  to  the  scheme. 
Fox  and  Grey,  as  the  representatives  of  the  Whigs,  vehe- 
mently denounced  it  in  the  beginning  of  1793,  maintaining,  like 
Pelham,  Pulteney,  and  Blackstone,  that  the  erection  of  bar- 
racks was  menacing  and  unconstitutional,  and  that  the  dangers 
of  a  standing  army  could  only  be  averted  if  the  soldiers  were 
closely  mixed  with  the  populace.^ 

'  'What  I  lament  is  to  see  the  with  our  patriots  and  with  the  public 
sentiments  of  the  nation  so  amazing! J'  in  general.  .  .  .  What  I  lament,  as  the 
reconciled  to  the  prospect  of  having  greatest  misfortiine  that  can  threaten 
a  far  more  numerous  body  of  regular  the  public  liberty,  is  to  see  the  eager- 
troops  kept  up  after  the  peace  than  ness  with  which  our  nobility,  born  to 
any  true  lover  of  his  country  in  former  be  the  guardians  of  the  Constitution 
times  thought  could  be  allowed  with-  against  prerogative,  solicit  the  badge 
out  endangering  the  Constitution.  of  military  subjection,  not  merely  to 
Nay,  so  unaccountably  fond  are  we  serve  their  comitry  in  times  of  danger, 
become  of  the  military  plan,  that  the  which  woiild  be  commendable,  but 
erection  of  barracks,  which  twenty  in  expectation  of  being  continued 
years  ago  would  have  ruined  any  min-  soldiers  when  tranquillity  shall  be 
ister  who  should  have  ventured  to  pro-  restored.' — Letter  to  Tico  Great  Men 
pose  it,  may  be  proposed  safely  by  bur  (Newcastle  and  Pitt),  p.  35. 
own  ministers  now-a-days,  and  upon  -  Clode. 
trial  be  found  to  be  a  favourite  measure  '  Pari.  ITist.xxx.  i7i-id6. 


560  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

I  SHALL  conclude  this  volume  with  a  brief  sketch  of  the  leading 
intellectual  and  social  changes  of  the  period  we  have  been 
examining  which  have  not  fallen  within  the  scope  of  the 
preceding  narrative.  In  the  higher  forms  of  intellect  if  we  omit 
the  best  works  of  Pope  and  Swift,  who  belong  chiefly  to  the 
reign  of  Anne,  the  reigns  of  George  I.  and  George  II.  were,  on 
the  whole,  not  prolific,  but  the  influence  of  the  press  was  great 
and  growing,  though  periodical  writing  was  far  less  brilliant 
than  in  the  preceding  period.  Among  other  writers,  Fielding, 
Lyttleton,  and  Chesterfield  occasionally  contributed  to  it.  The 
'  Craftsman '  especially,  though  now  utterly  neglected,  is  said 
to  have  once  attained  a  circulation  of  10,000,  was  believed  to 
have  eclipsed  the  'Spectator,'  and  undoubtedly  contributed 
largely  to  the  downfall  of  Walpole.  Though  set  up  by  Boling- 
broke  and  Pulteney,  it  was  edited  by  an  obscure  and  disreputable 
writer  named  Amhurst,  who  devoted  nearly  twenty  years  to  the 
service  of  the  faction,  but  who  was  utterly  neglected  by  them 
in  the  compromise  of  1742.  He  died  of  a  broken  heart,  and 
owed  his  grave  to  the  charity  of  a  bookseller.  We  have  already 
seen  the  large  sum  which  Walpole,  though  in  general  wholly 
indifferent  to  literary  merit,  bestowed  upon  the  Government 
press,  and  its  writers  were  also  occasionally  rewarded  by 
Government  patronage.  Thus  Trenchard,  the  author  of  '  Cato's 
Letters,'  obtained  the  post  of  '  commissioner  of  wine-licences  ' 
from  Walpole  ;  and  Concannon,  another  ministerial  writer,  was 
made  Attorney-General  of  Jamaica  by  Newcastle.  In  1724 
there  were  three  daily  and  five  weekly  papers  printed  in  Lon- 
don, as  well  as  ten  which  appeared  three  times  a  week.'  The 
'  Andrew's  Hist,  of  British  Journalism,  i.  p.  129. 


CH.  IV.  MULTIPLICATION   OF  NEWSPAPERS.  561 

number  steadily  increased,  and  a  provincial  press  gradually 
grew  up.  The  first  trace  of  newspapers  outside  London  is  in 
the  time  of  the  Commonwealth,  when  the  contending  armies 
carried  with  them  printing  presses  for  the  purpose  of  issuing 
reports  of  their  proceedings  ;  but  the  first  regular  provincial 
papers  appear  to  have  been  created  in  the  last  decade  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury almost  every  important  provincial  town  had  its  local  organ. 
Political  caricatures,  which  were  probably  Italian  in  their  ori- 
gin,' came  into  fashion  in  England  during  the  South  Sea  panic. 
Caricatures  on  cards,  which  were  for  a  time  exceedingly  popular, 
were  invented  by  George  Townshend,  in  1756.^  As  the  century 
advanced  the  political  importance  of  the  press  became  very 
apparent.  '  Newspapers,'  said  a  writer  in  the  '  Gentleman's 
Magazine  '  of  1731,  '  are  of  late  so  multiplied  as  to  render  it  im- 
possible, unless  a  man  makes  it  his  business,  to  consult  them  all. 
.  .  .  Upon  calculating  the  number  of  newspapers  it  is  found  that 
(besides  divers  written  accounts)  no  less  than  200  half-sheets  per 
month  are  thrown  from  the  press,  only  in  London,  and  about  as 
many  printed  elsewhere  in  the  three  kingdoms  ;  ...  so  that  they 
are  become  the  chief  channels  of  amusement  and  intelligence.' ' 
'  The  people  of  Great  Britain,"  said  j\lr.  Danvers  in  1738,  'are 
governed  by  a  power  that  never  was  heard  of  as  a  supreme 
authority  in  any  age  or  country  before.  ...  It  is  the  govern- 
ment of  the  press.  The  stuff  which  our  weekly  newspapers  are 
filled  with,  is  received  with  greater  reverence  than  Acts  of 
Parliament,  and  the  sentiments  of  one  of  these  scribblers  have 
more  weight  with  the  multitude  than  the  opinion  of  the  best 

'  In  the  recently  published  auto-  somebody  that  will  make  me  a  cari- 

biography  of   Lord  Shelburne    there  cature  of   Lady  Masham,  describing 

■  is  a  curious  anecdote  on  the  subject  her  covered  with  running  sores  and 

of  caricatures.  'He  [Lord  Melcombe]  ulcers,   that  T  may  send   it    to  the 

told  me   that  coming  home  through  Queen  to  give  her  a  right  idea  of  her 

Brussels,  he  was  presented  to  Sarah,  new  favourite? '  (p.  122). 

Duchess   of   ilarlborough,   after  her  ^  Walpole's  Memoirs  of  George  II. 

disgrace.     She  said  to  him,   '  Young  ii.  228. 

man,  you  come  from  Italy ;  they  tell  '  Advertisement  to  the  first  num- 

me  of  a  new  invention  there  called  her  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine. 
caricature  drawing.    Can  you  find  me 

VOL.  I.  37 


562  ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  it 

politician  in  the  kingdom.' '  '  No  species  of  literary  men,' 
wrote  Dr.  Johnson  in  1758,  '  has  lately  been  so  much  multi- 
plied as  the  writers  of  news.  Not  many  years  ago  the  nation 
was  content  with  one  Gazette,  but  now  we  have  not  only  in  the 
metropolis,  papers  of  every  morning  and  every  evening,  but 
almost  every  large  town  has  its  weekly  historian.'  ^  One  of  the 
consequences  of  the  complete  subjection  of  literary  men  to  the 
booksellers  was  the  creation  of  magazines,  which  afforded  a  more 
certain  and  rapid  remuneration  than  books,  and  gave  many 
writers  a  scanty  and  precarious  subsistence.  The  '  Gentleman's 
Magazine'  appeared  in  1731.  It  was  speedily  followed  by  its 
rival,  the  'London  Magazine ;' and  in  1750  there  were  eight 
periodicals  of  this  kind.  In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  also,  literary  reviews  began  in  England.  In  1752  there 
were  three — the  '  Literary,'  the  '  Critical,'  and  the  '  Monthly.' 
Under  George  II.  an  additional  tax  of  ^d.  had  been  imposed  on 
newspapers,  and  an  additional  duty  of  a  shilling  on  advertise- 
ments ;  but  the  demand  for  this  form  of  literature  was  so  great 
that  these  impositions  do  not  appear  to  have  seriously  checked 
it.^  The  essay  writers  had  made  it  their  great  object  as 
much  as  possible  to  popularise  and  diffuse  knowledge,  and  to 
bring  down  every  question  to  a  level  with  the  capacities  of  the 
idlest  reader ;  and  without  any  great  change  in  education,  any 
display  of  extraordinary  genius,  or  any  real  enthusiasm  for 
knowledge,  the  circle  of  intelligence  was  slowly  enlarged.  The 
progress  was  probably  even  greater  among  women  than  among 
men.  Swift,  in  one  of  his  latest  letters,  noticed  the  great 
improvement  which  had  taken  place  during  his  lifetime  in  the 
education  and  in  the  writing  of  ladies  ;•*  and  it  is  to  this  period 
that  some  of  the  best  female  correspondence  in  our  literature 
belongs. 

'  Pari.  Higt.  x.  448.  Uritish  Journalism.     Madden 's  Eist. 

^  The  Idler,  No.  30.  of      Irish      Periodical      Literahire. 

»  See.  on  the   History   of   News-  "Wright's   England  under  tlie  Eou^e 

papers,  Chalmers'  Life  of  Ruddiman.  of  Hanover. 

Nichols'   Literary   Anecdotes   of   the  *  Mrs.  Delany's  C<>rrespo7idence,  i. 

Mghteenth  Centui-y,  vol.  iv.     Hunt's  551. 
Fouj-th    Estate.    Andrews'    Hist,    of 


CH.  IV.  COAESENESS.  563 

The  prevailing-  coarseness,  however,  of  fashionable  life  and 
sentiment  was  but  little  mitigated.  The  writings  of  Swift, 
Defoe,  Fielding,  Coventry,  and  Smollett  are  sufficient  to  il- 
lustrate the  great  difference  which  in  this  respect  separated 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  from  our  own  day, 
and  imlike  Anne,  the  first  two  Hanoverian  sovereigns  did 
nothing  to  improve  the  prevailing  tone.  Each  king  lived 
publicly  with  mistresses,  and  the  immorality  of  their  Courts 
was  accompanied  by  nothing  of  that  refinement  or  grace 
which  has  often  cast  a  softening  veil  over  much  deeper  and 
more  general  corruption.  On  this  subject  the  vivid  and 
undoubtedly  authentic  picture  of  the  Court  of  George  II. 
which  is  furnished  by  Lord  Hervey  enables  us  to  speak  with 
much  confidence.  P'ew  figures  in  the  histoi-y  of  the  time  are 
more  worthy  of  study  than  that  shrewd  and  coarse-minded 
Queen,  who  by  such  infinite  adroitness,  and  by  such  amazing 
condescensions,  succeeded  in  obtaining  insensibly  a  complete 
command  over  the  mind  of  her  husband,  and  a  powerful  in- 
fluence over  the  politics  of  England.  Living  herself  a  life  of 
unsullied  virtue,  discharging  under  circumstances  of  peculiar 
difficulty  the  duties  of  a  wife  with  the  most  exemplary  patience 
and  diligence,  exercising  her  great  influence  in  Church  and 
State  with  singular  wisdom,  patriotism,  and  benevolence,  she 
passed  through  life  jesting  on  the  vices  of  her  husband  and  of 
his  ministers  with  the  coarseness  of  a  trooper,  receiving  from 
her  husband  the  earliest  and  fullest  accounts  of  every  new  love 
affair  in  which  he  was  engaged,  and  prepared  to  welcome 
each  new  mistress,  provided  only  she  could  herself  keep  the 
first  place  in  his  judgment  and  in  his  confidence.  The  cha- 
racter of  their  relation  remained  unbroken  to  the  end.  No 
stranger  death  scene  was  ever  painted  than  that  of  Caroline,' 

'  The  Queen  had   always  wished  was   dying ;     upon   which    his   sobs 

the  King  to  marry  again.     •  She  had  began  to   rise,  and  his  tears  to  fall 

often  said  so  when   he   was  present  with   double  vehemence.     AVhilst  in 

and  when  he   was   not  present,  and  the  midst  of  this  passion,  wiping  his 

when  she  was  in  health,  and  gave  it  eyes  and  sobbing  between  every  word, 

now,  as  her  advice  to  him  when  she  with    much    ado    he    got    out    this 


564  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

nor  can  we  easily  find  a  more  striking  illustration  of  the  in- 
consistencies of  human  nature  than  that  a  woman  so  coarse 
and  cynical  in  her  judgments  of  others  should  have  herself 
died  a  victim  of  an  excessive  and  misplaced  delicacy.^  The 
works  of  Eichardson,  which  appeared  between  1740  and  1753, 
and  which  at  once  attained  an  extraordinary  popularity,  probably 
contributed  something  to  refine  the  tone  of  society,  but  the 
improvement  was  not  very  perceptible  till  the  reign  of 
George  III.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  a  well-known  anecdote,  has 
illustrated  very  happily  the  cliange  that  had  taken  place.  He 
tells  us  that  a  grand-aunt  of  his  own  assured  him  that  the 
novels  of  Aphra  Behn  were  as  current  upon  the  toilet  table  in 
her  youth  as  the  novels  of  Miss  Edgeworth  in  her  old  age,  and 
he  has  described  very  vividly  the  astonishment  of  his  old  rela- 
tive when,  curiosity  leading  her,  after  a  long  interval  of  years, 
to  turn  over  the  forgotten  pages  she  had  delighted  in  when 
young,  she  found  that,  sitting  alone  at  the  age  of  eighty,  she 
was  unable  to  read  without  shame  a  book,  which  sixty  years 
before  she  had  heard  read  out  for  amusement  in  large  circles 
consisting  of  the  best  society  in  London.^ 

In  one  respect  during  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  there  was  a  marked  deterioration.  The  passion  for 
gambling,  which  had  been  very  prevalent  since  the  Eestoration, 
appears  to  have  attained  its  climax  under  the  first  two  Georges. 
It  had  been  very  considerably  stimulated  by  the  madness  of 
speculation  which  infected  all  classes  during  the  South  Sea 
mania.  That  desire  to  make  rapid  fortunes,  that  contempt  for 
the  slow  and  steady  gains  of  industry  which  has  in  our  own 
day  so  often  produced  the  wildest  combinations  of  recklessness 

answer :  '-Non,  j'aurai  des  mattresses."  her  husband.  When  on  her  death-bed, 

To  which  the  Queen  made  no  other  and    suffering    extreme    agony,   she 

reply  than :    "  Ah,  mon   Dieu  !    cela  still  concealed  it  from  her  doctors, 

n'empCche  pas."    I  know  this  episode  and  it  was  contrary  to  her  ardent  wish 

will  hardly  be    credited,   but  it   is  that  the  King,  too  late  to  save  her, 

literally      true.'  —  Lord      Hervey's  told  th.m   of   her   complaint.     Lord 

Memoirs,  ii.  513-514.  Hervey,  ii.  505-606. 

•  She  had  for  fourteen  years  suf-  ^  Lockhart's  lAfe  of  Scott,  v.  136- 

fered  from  a  rupture  which  she  could  137. 
not  bring  herself  to  reveal  except  to 


CH.  IV.  SPECULATION— GAMBLING.  565 

and  credulity,  was  never  more  apparent.  Scheme  after  scheme 
of  the  most  fantastic  description  rose,  and  glittered,  and  bm-st. 
Companies  for  '  P^isbing  up  Wrecks  on  the  Irish  Coast,'  for 
'  Insurance  against  Losses  by  Servants,'  for  '  Making  Salt  Water 
Fresh,'  for  '  Extracting  Silver  from  Lead,'  for  '  Transmuting 
Quicksilver  into  Malleable  and  Fine  Metal,'  for  '  Importing  Jack- 
asses from  Spain,'  for  '  Trading  in  Human  Hair,'  for  '  A  Wheel 
for  Perpetual  Motion,'  as  well  as  many  others,  attracted  crowds 
of  eager  subscribers.  One  projector  announced  a  Company  '  for 
an  undertaking  which  shall  in  due  time  be  revealed,'  each 
subscriber  to  pay  at  once  two  guineas,  and  afterwards  to  receive 
a  share  of  a  hundred,  with  a  disclosure  of  the  object.  In  a 
single  morning  he  received  2,000  guineas,  with  which  he 
immediately  decamped.^ 

It  was  natural  that  tliis  passion  for  speculation  should  have 
stimulated  the  taste  for  gambling  in  private  life.  It  had 
long  been  inveterate  among  the  upper  classes,  and  it  soon  rose 
to  an  unprecedented  height.  The  chief,  or,  at  least,  the  most 
prominent,  centre  was  White's  chocolate-house.  Swift  tells 
us  that  Lord  Oxford  never  passed  it  without  bestowing  on  it  a 
curse  as  '  the  bane  of  the  English  nobility  ;'  and  it  continued 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  century  to  be  the  scene  of  the 
wildest  and  most  extravagant  gambling.  It  was,  however,  only 
the  most  prominent  among  many  similar  establishments  which 
sprang  up  around  Charing  Cross,  Leicester  Fields,  and  Golden 
Square.  The  Duke  of  Devonshire  lost  an  estate  at  a  game 
of  basset..  The  fine  intellect  of  Chesterfield  was  thoroughly 
enslaved  by  the  vice.  At  Bath,  which  was  then  the  centre 
of  English  fashion,  it  reigned  supreme ;  and  the  physicians 
even  recommended  it  to  their  patients  as  a  form  of  dis- 
traction. In  the  green-rooms  of  the  theatres,  as  Mrs.  Bellamy 
assures  us,  thousands  were  often  lost  and  won  in  a  single  night. 
Among  fashionable  ladieg  the  passion  was  quite  as  strong  as 
among  men,  and  tlie  professor  of  whist  and  quadrille  became  a 
regular  attendant  at  their  levees.  JMiss  Pelham,  the  daughter  of 
'  Macpherson's  Annals  of  Commerce,  vol.  iii. 


566  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  iv. 

the  prime  minister,  was  one  of  the  most  notorious  gamblers  of  her 
time,  and  Lady  Cowper  speaks  in  her  '  Diary '  of  sittings  at  Court 
at  which  the  lowest  stake  was  200  guineas.  The  public  lotteries 
contributed  very  powerfully  to  diffuse  the  taste  for  gambling 
among  all  classes.  They  had  begun  in  England  in  the  seven- 
teenth century ;  and  though  more  than  once  forbidden,  they 
enabled  the  Grovernment  to  raise  money  with  so  little  unpopu- 
larity that  they  were  again  resorted  to.  '  I  cannot  forbear 
telling  you,'  wrote  Addison  to  an  Irish  friend  in  1711,  '  that  last 
week  I  drew  a  prize  of  1,000L  in  the  lottery.'  •  Fielding  wrote 
a  satire  on  the  passion  for  lotteries  prevalent  in  his  time.  The 
discovery  of  some  gross  frauds  in  their  management  contributed 
to  throw  them  into  discredit,  and  Pelham  is  said  to  have  ex- 
pressed some  disapproval  of  them,  but  they  were  not  finally 
suppressed  in  England  till  1823.  Westminster  Bridge,  whicli 
was  begun  in  1736,  was  built  chiefly  from  the  produce  of  lot- 
teries. Another  instance  of  their  employment  is  deserving  of 
special  remembrance,  for  it  is  connected  with  the  origin  of  one 
of  the  most  valuable  of  London  institutions.  In  1753  lotteries 
were  established  to  purchase  the  Sloane  collection  and  the 
Harleian  manuscripts,  which  were  combined  with  the  Cottonian 
collection,  and  deposited  in  Montague  House  under  the  name  of 
the  British  Museum.^ 

Concerning  the  amusements  and  social  life  of  the  upper  classes 
I  shall  content  myself  with  making  a  few  somewhat  miscellaneous 
observations.  The  subject  is  a  very  large  one,  and  it  would 
require  volumes  to  exhaust  it ;  but  it  is,  I  think,  possible  to 
select  from  the  mass  of  details  a  few  facts  which  are  not  with- 
out a  real  historic  importance,  as  indicating  the  tendencies  of 
taste,  and  thus  throwing  some  light  on  the  moral  history  of 
the  nation.  It  was  said  that  the  Kevolution  brought  four 
tastes  into  England,  two  of  which  were  chiefly  due  to  Mary, 

'  Addison  to  Jos.  Dawson.     (Dec.  Hist,   of  Inventions,  ii.  pp.  423-429. 

18,  1711)  Departmental  Correspond-  The  passion  for  gambling  in  England 

ence.    Irish  State  Paper  Office.  appears  in  all  the  correspondence  and 

-  Macpherson,  iii.  SOO.  Beckmann's  other  light  literature  of  the  time. 


OH.  IV.  INFUENCE   OF  THE  REVOLUTION   ON   TASTE.  567 

and  two  to  her  husband.  To  Mary  was  due  a  passion  for 
coloured  East  Indian  calicoes,  which  speedily  spread  through 
all  classes  of  the  community,  and  also  a  passion  for  rare  and 
eccentric  porcelain,  which  continued  for  some  generations  to 
be  a  favourite  topic  with  the  satirists.  William,  on  his  side, 
set  the  fashion  of  picture-collecting  and  gave  a  great  impulse 
to  gardening.^  This  latter  taste,  which  forms  one  of  the 
healthiest  elements  in  English  country  life,  attained  its  height 
in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteentli  century,  and  it  took  a  form 
which  was  entirely  new.  In  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  the  parks 
of  Greenwich  and  St.  James  had  been  laid  out  by  the  great 
French  gardener  Le  Notre,  and  the  taste  which  he  made 
general  in  Europe  reigned  in  its  most  exaggerated  form  in  Eng- 
land. It  appeared  to  be  a  main  object  to  compel  nature  to 
recede  as  far  as  possible,  to  repress  every  irregularity,  to  make 
the  human  hand  apparent  in  every  shrub,  and  to  convert  gar- 
dening into  an  anomalous  form  of  sculpture.  The  trees  were 
habitually  carved  into  cones,  or  pyramids,  or  globes,  into  smooth, 
even  walls,  or  into  fantastic  groups  of  men  and  animals.  The 
flower-beds  were  laid  out  symmetrically  in  architectiural  figures. 
Long,  straight,  and  formal  alleys,  a  perfect  uniformity  of  design, 
and  a  constant  recurrence  of  similar  forms,  were  essential  to 
a  well-arranged  garden.  The  passion  for  gardening,  however,  at 
this  time  took  some  root  in  England,  and  the  writings  of  Evelyn 
did  much  to  extend  it.  William  introduced  the  fashion  of 
masses  of  clipped  yews  forming  the  avenue  or  shading  the  ap- 
proaches of  the  house,  and  of  imposing  iron  gates.  Sir  William 
Temple,  in  his  essay  '  On  the  Garden  of  Epicurus,'  accurately 
reflected  the  prevailing  taste.  But  early  in  the  eighteenth 
century  two  great  gardeners — Bridgeman,  who  died  in  1 737, 
and  Kent,  who  died  in  1748 — originated  a  new  form  of  land- 
scape-gardening which  speedily  acquired  an  almost  universal 
popularity.  They  utterly  discarded  all  vegetable  sculpture  and 
all  symmetry  of  design,  gave  free  scope  to  the  wild,  luxuriant 
and  irregular  beauties  of  nature,  and  made  it  their  aim  to  re- 
'  Dctoe's  2'our  thraugh  Great  Britain,  i.12l-l2i. 


568  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  iv.  ^ 

produce,  as  far  as  possible,  in  a  small  compass  its  variety  and  its 
freedom.  The  essay  in  which  Bacon  had  urged  that  one  part  of 
a  garden  should  be  made  an  imitation  of  unrestricted  nature, 
the  description  of  Paradise  in  Milton,  and  the  description  of  the 
garden  of  Armida  in  Tasso,  were  cited  as  foreshadowing  the 
change,  and  at  a  later  period  the  poetry  of  Thomson  un- 
doubtedly contributed  to  sustain  it.  Addison  and  Pope  laid  out 
their  gardens  on  the  new  plan,  and  defended  it  with  their  pens,^ 
and  the  latter  is  said  to  have  greatly  assisted  Kent  by  his  advice. 
Spence  and  Horace  Walpole  were  enthusiastic  disciples.^  The 
new  system  was  made  the  subject  of  a  graceful  poem  by  Mason, 
and  of  an  ingenious  essay  by  Shenstone,  and  in  1770  appeared 
Whately  s  '  Observations  on  Modern  Gardening,'  which  was  the 
first  considerable  standard  work  in  England  upon  the  subject. 
The  gardens  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  at  Carlton  House  were  imi- 
tated from  that  of  Pope  at  Twickenham.^  Kensington  Gardens 
were  laid  out  by  Kent  on  the  new  plan,  as  well  as  the  gardens  of 
Claremont  and  Esher,  those  of  Lord  Burlington  at  Chiswick, 
and  those  of  Lord  Cobham  at  Stowe. 

The  example  was  speedily  followed,  and  often  exaggerated,^ 
in  every  part  of  England,  and  the  revolution  of  taste  was  ac- 
companied by  a  great  increase  in  the  love  of  gardening.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  century  there  were  probably  not  more 
than  1,000  species  of  exotics  in  England,  but  before  its  close 
more  than  5,000  new  kinds  were  introduced.  When  INIiller 
published  the  first  edition  of  his  '  Dictionary  of  Gardening ' 
in  1724,  only  twelve  species  of  evergreens  were  grown  in  the 
island,  and  the  number  of  the  plants  cultivated  in  England 
is  said  to  have  more  than  doubled  between  1731   and   1768.^ 

'  See    Addison's    papers    in    the  on  the  English  Nation,  ii.  266-274. 

Spectator,  No.  414,  477,  and   Pope's  '  Walpole  on  Modern  Gardening. 

very  curious  paper  in  the  Guardian,  *  See  on  these  exaggerations,  The 

No.    173.      See,    too.    Pope's    Moral  World,  Nos.    6,    15.     The  taste   was 

Essays,  Ep.  4.  carried  so  far   that  dead  trees  were 

^  Spence 's  Anecdotes,  xxxi.    Wal-  sometimes  planted,  and  every  straight 

pole  on  Modern  Gardens.     S^e,  too,  walk  condemned, 

his  Life  of  Kent.     See  also,  on  the  ^  Loudon's  Encyclopesdia  of  Gar- 

spread  of  the  taste,  Angeloni's  Letters  dening,  pp.  276,  277. 


CH.  IV.  .  GAEDENING.  569 

Very  many  were  introduced  from  Madeira,  and  tlie  West 
Indies,  which  had  been  explored  by  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  and 
from  the  American  colonies,  which  had  been  explored  by 
several  independent  investigators  ;  and  the  taste  for  botany  was 
still  more  diffused  by  the  long  controversies  that  followed  tlie 
publication  in  1735  of  the  great  discovery  of  Linnaeus  about 
the  sexual  nature  of  plants.^  Landscape-gardening  is  said  to 
have  been  introduced  into  Ireland  by  Dr.  Delany,  the  friend  of 
Swift,  and  into  Scotland  by  Lord  Kames,^  but  both  countries 
remained  in  this  respect  far  behind  England.  At  Edinburgh  a 
botanical  garden  appears  to  have  existed  as  early  as  1680.^  In 
Ireland  a  florists'  club  was  established  by  some  Huguenot 
refugees  in  the  reign  of  George  I.,  but  it  met  with  no  encourage- 
ment and  speedily  expired.'*  An  Englishman  named  Threlkeld, 
who  was  settled  in  Dublin,  published  in  1727  *  A  Synopsis  of 
Irish  Plants ;'  and  another  work  entitled '  Botanologia  Universalis 
Hibernica,  or  a  general  Irish  Herbal,'  was  published  in  1735  by 
a  writer  named  Keogh.^  In  England  the  love  for  gardens  and 
for  botany  continually  extended,  and  it  forms  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  features  in  the  history  of  national  tastes  during  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  poet  Gray,  in  a  letter  written  in  1763,  observes  that 
'  our  skill  In  gardening  or  laying  out  grounds  is  the  only  taste 
we  can  call  our  own,  the  only  proof  of  original  talent  in  matters 
ot  pleasure.'.  In  architecture,  it  is  true,  England  had  produced 
one  or  two  respectable  and  one  really  great  name  ;  and  the  fire 
of  London  had  given  Wren  a  noble  field  for  the  display  of  his 
genius,  but  in  other  departments  of  art  there  was  an  almost 
absolute  blank.  Few  questions  in  history  are  more  perplexing, 
and  perhaps  insoluble,  than  the  causes  which  govern  the  great 
manifestations  of  aesthetic  genius.  Germany,  which  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Eeformation  was  in  this  respect  peculiarly  prolific — 

'  Miller's  Retrospect  of  the  Eigh-  England,  ii.  4. 
tcenth  Century,  i.  pp.  163-188.  *  Loudon's  Encyclopadia,  p.  282. 

■•'  Loudon's  Encychpwdia,  pp.  269,  *  Pulteney's  Progress  of  Botany  in 

-'•^-  England,  ii.  197-201. 

"  Tvlteney's  Progress  of  Botany  in 


5Y0  ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

Germany  which  is  now  pre-eminently  the  land  of  artistic  criti- 
cism, and  which  stands  in  the  first  rank  of  artistic  production- 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  produced  a  single  painter  of  real 
genius  during  the  long  period  that  elapsed  between  the  death 
of  Holbein  and  the  dawn  of  the  nineteenth  century.     France, 
the    richest,  the  most  cultivated,   the  most   luxurious   nation 
on    the  Continent,   in   spite    of  a  munificent  royal  patronage 
of  art,  was  during  the  same  period  but  little  more  successful. 
Many  very  considerable  artists,  no  doubt,  arose  ;  but  yet   the 
nation  which  appears  beyond  all  others  to  possess  the  gift  of 
grace  and  delicacy  of  touch,  which  has  created  the  Gobelins 
tapestry  and  the  Sevres  china,  and  has  governed  through  a  long 
succession  of  generations  the  taste  of  Europe,  could  boast  of  no 
painter  except  Claude  Lorraine,   who  had   taken  absolutely  a 
foremost  place  ;  and  its  art  was  far  inferior  to  that  which  grew 
up  in  more  than  one  small  Italian  province,  among  the  canals 
of  Holland,  or  in  the  old  cities  of  Flanders.     But  of  all  the 
great  civilised  nations,  England  in  this  respect  ranked  the  last. 
Dobson,  indeed,  who  had  been  brought  forward  by  the  patronage 
of  Vandyck,  and  who  died  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-six,  showed 
some  real  talent  for  portrait-painting,  and  Oliver,  Hilliard,  and 
Cooper  some  skill  in  miniature  ;  but  still,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  not  a  single  English  painter  or  sculptor 
had  taken  a  permanent  place  in  European  art,  and  the  number 
of  painters,  even  of  third  or  fourth  rate  excellence,  was  very 
small.     The  principal,  and,  indeed,  the  most  congenial,  employ- 
ment of  the  British  artist  appears  to  have  been  the  production 
of  the  gaudy  sign-boards  which  nearly  every  shopkeeper  was 
then  accustomed  to  hang  out  before  his  door.^ 

This  complete  barrenness  of  British  art  is  in  many  ways 
remarkable.  No  real  deficiency  of  imagination  can  be  attri- 
buted to  a  nation  which  has  produced  the  noblest  poetic  litera- 
ture in  Christendom ;  and  something  had  been  done  to  stimulate 
artistic  taste.  Henry  VIII.,  Elizabeth,  and  above  all.  Charles  I., 
had  warmly  patronised  art,  and  the  latter  was  one  of  the  two 
>  Spectator,  No.  28. 


cu.  IV.  PAINTING.  571 

greatest  collectors  of  liis  time.  He  purchased  the  cartoons  of 
Eaphael  and  the  whole  collection  of  the  Duke  of  Mantua,  which 
was  then  the  most  valuable  in  Europe.  He  drew  over  to 
England  both  Rubens  and  Vandyck,  and  his  competition  witli 
Philip  IV.  of  Spain  was  so  keen  that  it  is  said  to  have  tripled 
the  ordinary  price  of  the  works  of  the  great  artists.'  In  the 
early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  English  were  already 
famous  for  their  assiduity  in  haunting  the  galleries  in  Italy,- 
and  for  their  zeal  in  collecting  pictures ;  and  their  aristocracy 
possessed  ample  wealth  to  enable  them  to  gratify  their  desires. 
Catholicism  is,  no  doubt,  more  favourable  to  art  than  Pro- 
testantism ;  but  if  the  change  of  religion  had  in  some  degree 
impaired  the  appreciation  of  Italian  or  Spanish  art,  the  English 
were  at  least  in  intimate  connection  with  Holland,  where  a 
noble  school  existed  which  was  essentially  the  creation  of 
Protestantism.  A  few  Italian  and  a  long  succession  of  Dutch 
and  Flemish  artists  visited  England.  It  possessed,  indeed,  an 
admirable  school  of  painting,  but  it  was  a  school  which  was 
represented  almost  exclusively  by  foreigners,  by  Holbein,  Ru- 
bens, Vandyck,  Lely,  and  Kneller.  Foreign  writers  were  accus- 
tomed to  attribute  the  utter  absence  of  native  talent  in  art  to 
the  aspect  of  physical  nature,  and  especially  to  the  turbid  and 
depressing  gloom  of  a  northern  sky ;  but  the  explanation  will 
hardly  appear  sufficient  to  those  who  remember  that  Rembrandt, 
Van  der  Heist,  Potter,  Gerard  Dow,  Cuyp,  and  many  other 
artists  of  consummate  power,  grew  up  beneath  a  sky  that  is 
scarcely  brighter  than  that  of  England,  and  in  a  country  much 
less  eminently  endowed  with  natural  beauty. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  explain  fidly  this  deficiency,  but  several 
partial  solutions  may  be  given.  Puritanism  was  exceedingly 
inimical  to  art,  and  the  Parliament  in  1 645  ordered  that  the 
pictures  in  the  royal  collection  containing  representations  of  the 
Second  Person  of  the  Trinity,  or  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  should  be 

>  Du  Bos,  Reflexions  critiques  sur      Paintint/,  ch.  ix. 
la  poesie  et  mr  la  2>eivtuve,  torn.  ii.  p.  -  Ibid. 

152(1733).     Walpole's  Anecdotes  of 


572  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  ch.  iv. 

burnt,  and  that  all  the  other  pictui-es  collected  by  Charles  should 
be  sold.  Fortunately  this  very  cliaracteristic  edict  was  not  fully 
complied  with.  Cromwell  succeeded  in  saving  the  cartoons 
of  Kaphael  and  other  less  important  pictures  for  England 
and  the  world;  but  a  great  portion  of  the  art  treasures  of 
the  King  were  dispersed.  Many  of  his  finest  pictures  found 
their  way  to  the  Escurial,  and  a  ply  which  was  exceedingly 
hostile  to  art  was  given  to  a  large  part  of  the  English  people. 
In  order  that  the  artistic  capacities  of  a  nation  should  be 
largely  developed,  it  is  necessary  that  the  great  body  of  the 
people  should  come  in  frequent  contact  with  artistic  works,  and 
that  there  should  be  institutions  securing  the  means  of  artistic 
education.  Both  of  these  conditions  were  wanting  in  England. 
In  ancient  Grreece  and  in  modern  Florence  all  classes  of  the 
community  had  the  opportunity  of  becoming  familiar  with  the 
noblest  work?  of  the  chisel  or  of  the  pencil ;  their  taste  was 
thus  gradually  educated,  and  any  artistic  genius  that  was  latent 
among  them  was  awakened.  But  in  England  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  works  of  art  were  in  private  hands,  while  Sabbatarian 
prejudices  and  the  division  of  classes  produced  by  an  aristocratic 
tone  of  manners,  effectually  excluded  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  from  the  small  number  of  paintings  that  were  in  public 
institutions.  Annual  exhibitions  were  as  yet  unknown.^  The 
country  habits  of  the  English  nobility  turned  their  tastes 
chiefly  in  the  direction  of  field-sports  and  other  outdoor  pur- 
suits, and  art  never  occupied  the  same  prominence  in  their 
lives  as  it  did  in  those  of  the  Cardinals  of  Kome,  or  of  the  rich 
merchants  of  Florence,  Venice,  and  Amsterdam.  The  same  pre- 
dilection for  a  country  life  induced  most  of  those  who  were  real 
collectors  to  accumulate  their  treasures  in  their  country-houses, 
where  they  were  seen  only  by  a  few  private  friends,  and  were 

'  According  to  Pye,  the  first  public  to  establish  an  annual  exhibition,  and 

exhibition  of  British  Works  of  Art  was  in  the  following  year  they,  for  the  first 

about  1740,  when  Hogarth  presented  time,   carried    their    intention    into 

a  portrait  to  the  Foundling  Hospital,  effect. — Pye's   Patronage    of   British 

andotherartistsfoUowedhisexample.  AH,  p.  286. 
In  1759  a  meeting  of  artists  resolved 


CH.  IV.  PAINTING.  573 

utterly  without  influence  on  the  nation  at  large.  In  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  England  was  already  very  rich  in 
private  collections,'  but  the  proportion  of  Englishmen  who  had 
ever  looked  at  a  good  picture  or  a  good  statue  was  very  small. 
Nor  were  there  any  means  of  artistic  education.  At  Paris  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Painting  and  Sciilpture  was  established  as 
early  as  1648,  and  in  1665  Colbert  founded  that  admirable  in- 
stitution, the  French  Academy  at  Eome,  for  the  purpose  of 
providing  young  artists  with  the  best  possible  instruction.  In 
England  nothing  of  the  kind  existed,  and  in  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century  a  poor  student  of  art  could  find  no  as- 
sistance except  by  private  patronage.  The  first  two  Georges 
were  absolutely  indifferent  to  art,  and  although  a  fashion  of 
collecting  pictures  had  spread  very  widely  among  the  English 
aristocracy,  their  patronage  was  neither  generous  nor  intelligent. 
It  was  observed  that  portrait-painting,  which  touched  another 
sentiment  besides  love  of  pure  art,  was  the  only  form  that  was 
reaUy  encouraged.  Painter  after  painter,  distinguished  in  other 
branches,  came  over  to  England,  but  they  invariably  found  that 
they  could  succeed  only  by  devoting  themselves  to  the  one  de- 
partment which  appealed  directly  to  the  vanity  of  their  patrons.^ 
'  Painters  of  history,'  said  Kneller,  '  make  the  dead  live,  but  do 

'  A  list  of  the  chief  collections  in  gave  to  Dr.  Mead,  during  the  time 
England  in  1766  is  given  in  Pye's  he  resided  here.  At  the  same  time, 
Patronaffe of  JBi-itishAri, pp.  I4:!y-li6,  Vanloo,  who  came  hither  with  the 
and  catalogues  of  the  chief  pictures  reputation  of  painting  portraits 
contained  in  them  will  be  found  in  a  very  well,  was  obliged  to  keep  three 
book  called  The  J-Jufjlish  Connoisseur  :  or  four  subaltern  painters  for  drapery 
an  accaunt  of  ivhaterer  is  citrioits  in  and  other  parts.' — Angeloni's  Letters 
painting  and  scnlj>tiire  in  the  jjalotces  on  the  English  (2nd  ed.  1756),  vol. 
and  seats  of  the  nobility  and  gentry  i.  p.  97.  So,  too,  Amiconi,  a  Venetian 
of  Englund' {lliofy).  historical  painter,  came  to  England 
'  ^  '  No  painter,  however  excellent,  in  1729,  and  tried  for  a  time  to  main- 
can  succeed  among  the  English,  that  tain  a  position  by  his  own  form  of 
is  not  engaged  in  painting  portraits.  art,  'but,'  says  Horace  Walpole,  'as 
Canaletti,  whose  works  they  admired  portraiture  is  the  one  thing  necessary 
whilst  he  resided  at  Venice,  at  his  to  a  painter  in  this  country,  he  was 
coming  to  London  had  not  in  a  whole  obliged  to  betake  himself  to  that 
year  the  employment  of  three  months.  employment  much  against  his  in- 
Watteau,  whose  pictures  are  sold  at  clination.' — Anecdotes  of  Painting. 
such  great  prices  at  present,  painted  See,  too,  Dallaway's  Progress  of  tlie 
never  a  picture   but   two   wliich   he  Ai'ts  in  England,  pp.  455-461. 


CH.    IT. 


574  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY. 

not  be.nn  to  live  themselves  till  they  are  dead.     I  paint  the 
livino-  and  they  make  me  live.'      Hogarth  described  portrait- 
painting  as  '  the  only  flourishing  branch  of  the  high  tree  of 
British   art.'     Barry  complained   that    '  the  difficulty  of  sub- 
sisting by  any  other  species  of  art  ...  .  and  the  love  of  ease 
and  affluence  had  so  operated  upon  our  youth  that  the  country 
had  been  filled  with  this  species  of  artist.'     The  Dutch  por- 
trait-painter  Vanloo,   who    came   to  London  in   1737,  was  so 
popular  that,  as  a  nearly    contemporary  writer  tells  us,  *for 
several  weeks  after  his  arrival,  the  train  of  carriages  at  his  door 
was  like  that  at  the  door  of  a  theatre.     He  had  some  hundred;^ 
of  portraits  begun,  and  was  obliged  to  give  as  many  as  five  sit- 
tings in  a  day.     Large  bribes  were  given  by  many  to  the  man 
who  kept  the  register  of  his  engagements,  in  order  to  accelerate 
their  sittings,  and  when  that  was  not  done,  it  was  often  neces- 
sary to  wait  six  weeks.'    Vanloo  remained  in  England  only  four 
years,  but  is  said  to  have  accumulated  in  that  time  considerable 
wealth.'     On  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  remarkable  that,  in  the 
next  generation,  Wilson,    the  first  great  English   landscape- 
painter,  and  Barry,  the  first  historical  painter  of  real  talent, 
were  both  of  them  unable  to  earn  even  a  small  competence, 
and  both  of  them  died  in  extreme  poverty.     Vertue,  who  died 
in  1756,  carried  the  art  of  engraving  to  considerable  perfection, 
and  was  followed  by  Boydell  and  a  few  other  native  engravers. 
Kneller,  and  afterwards  Thornhill,  made  some  attempts  in  the 
first   quarter   of  the  century  to  maintain   a  private    academy 
in  England  for  artistic  instruction,  but  they  appear  to  have 
met  with  little   encouragement,   and  the  reign   of   George    I. 
is   on  the  whole   one    of  the    darkest   periods  in  the   history 
of  English  art.     Early  in  the  next  reign,  however,  a   painter 
of  great  and  original  genius  emerged  from  obscurity,  who,  in 
a  low  form  of   art,  attained  a  high,  and  almost   a    supreme, 
perfection.     William  Hogarth  was  born  in  London,  of  obscure 
parents,  in    1698.      His   early   years    were  chiefly   passed    in 
engraving   arms,  shop   bills,  and  plates  for  books.     He  then 
llouquet,  L'Etat  den  AHs  en  Angletcrrs,  pp.  59-60. 


CH.  IV.  PAINTING — MUSIC.  575 

painted  portraits,  some  of  them  of  singular  beauty,  and  occa- 
sionally furnished  designs  for  tapestry.  In  1730  he  secretly 
married  the  daughter  of  Sir  James  Thornhill,  the  fashionable 
artist  of  the  day,  and  in  1731  he  completed  his  'Harlot's 
Progress,'  which  proved  to  all  good  judges  that,  for  the  tirst 
time,  a  really  great  native  painter  had  arisen  in  England. 
Had  his  genius  been  of  a  higher  order,  he  would  probably  have 
been  less  successful.  He  had  little  charm  of  colouring  or  sense 
of  beauty,  and  no  power  of  idealising  nature ;  but  the  intense 
realism,  the  admirable  homeliness  and  truth  of  his  pictures  of 
English  life,  and  the  excellent  morals  tliey  invariably  con- 
veyed, appealed  to  all  classes,  while  their  deep  and  various 
meaning,  and  the  sombre  imagination  he  sometimes  threw  over 
liis  conceptions,'  raised  them  far  above  the  level  of  the  mere 
grotesque.  The  popularity  of  his  designs  was  such  that  they 
were  immensely  imitated,  and  it  was  found  necessary  to  pass  an 
Act  of  Parliament,  in  1735,  vesting  an  exclusive  right  in  de- 
signers and  engravers,  and  restraining  the  multiplying  of  copies 
of  works  without  the  consent  of  the  artist.'^  In  the  same  reign 
sculpture  in  England  was  largely  pursued  by  Eysbrack,  a  native 
of  Antwerp,  and  by  Roubiliac,  a  native  of  Lyons. 

The  taste  for  music  was  more  widely  diffused  than  that  for 
painting;  but  although  it  made  rapid  progress  in  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  tliis  was  in  no  degree  due  to 
native  talent.  A  distinguished  French  critic  ^  has  noticed,  as 
one  of  the  most  striking  of  the  many  ditferences  between  the 
two  great  branches  of  the  Teutonic  race,  that,  among  all  modern 
civilised  nations,  the  Grermans  are  probably  the  most  eminent, 
and  the  English  tlie  most  deficient,  in  musical  talent.  Up  to 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  however,  this  distinction 
did  not  exist,  and  England  might  fairly  claim  a  very  respect- 
able rank  among  musical  nations.  No  feature  in  the  poetry  of 
Shakespeare  or  jNIiltou  is  more  remarkable  than  the  exquisite 
and  delicate  appreciation  of  music  they  continually  evince,  and 

'  See  e.(7.  that  noble  sketch — tlie  •  8  Geo.  ii.  c.  13.   Nichols' JJ/ewioirj 

last  he  ever  drew — called  '  Finis.'  of  HmjaHh,  p.  37.  *  Renan. 


576  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  CH.  iv. 

the  musical  dramas  known  under  the  name  of  masques,  which 
were  so  popular  from  the  time  of  Ben  Jonson  to  the  time  of 
the  Eebellion,  kept  up  a  general  taste  for  the  art.  Henry 
Lawes,  who  composed  the  music  for  '  Comus,'  as  well  as  edited 
the  poem,  and  to  whom  Milton  has  paid  a  beautifvd  compliment/ 
was  conspicuous  as  a  composer.  Blow,  in  the  last  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  contributed  much  to  church  music  ;  but 
the  really  great  name  in  English  music  was  Henry  Purcell,  who 
was  born  in  1658,  and  died  in  1697,  and  who,  in  the  opinion  of 
many  competent  judges,  deserves  to  rank  among  the  very  greatest 
composers  who  had  up  to  that  date  arisen  in  Europe.  In  the 
early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  however,  music  was  purely 
an  exotic.  The  capital  fact  of  this  period  was  the  introduction 
and  great  popularity  of  the  Italian  opera.  Operas  on  the  Italian 
model  first  appeared  in  England  in  1705.  They  were  at  first 
sung  in  English,  and  by  English  performers  ;  but  soon  after, 
some  Italian  castrati  having  come  over,  the  principal  characters 
in  the  dialogue  sang  in  Italian,  while  the  subordinate  charac- 
ters answered  in  English.  After  two  or  three  years,  this  ab- 
surdity passed  away,  and  the  operas  became  wholly  Italian. 
In  1710  the  illustrious  Handel  first  came  to  England,  and 
'Einaldo,'  his  earliest  opera,  appeared  in  1711.  Bononcini, 
who  at  one  time  rivalled  his  popularity  as  a  composer,  fol- 
lowed a  few  years  later.  An  Academy  for  Music  was  founded 
in  1720,  and  several  Italian  singers  of  the  highest  merit  were 
brought  over,  at  salaries  which  were  then  unparalleled  in 
Europe.  The  two  great  female  singers  Cuzzoni  and  La  Faus- 
tina obtained  each  2,000  guineas  a-year,  Farinelli  1,500 
guineas  and  a  benefit,  Senesino   1,400  guineas.      The  rivalry 

'  '  But  first  I  must  put  off 
These  my  sky-robes,  spun  out  of  Iris'  woof, 
And  take  the  weeds  and  likeness  of  a  swain 
That  to  the  service  of  this  house  belongs, 
Who  with  his  soft  pipe  and  smooth-dittied  song 
Well  knows  to  still  the  wild  winds  when  they  roar. 
And  hush  the  waving  woods.'  Comxis. 

Lawes  taught  music  in  the  house  of  Lord  Eridgewater,  wliere  Cuvnis  was 
first  represented. 


CH.  IV.  HANDEL.  577 

between  Cuzzoni  and  La  Faustina,  and  the  rivalry  between 
Handel  and  Bononcini,  divided  society  into  factions  almost 
like  those  of  the  Byzantine  empire ;  and  the  conflicting  claims 
of  the  two  composers  were  celebrated  in  a  well-known  epi- 
gram, which  has  been  commonly  attributed  to  Swift,  but  which 
was  in  reality  written  by  Byrom.'  The  author  little  imagined 
that  one  of  the  composers,  whom  he  treated  with  such  contempt, 
was,  in  his  own,  and  that  no  ignoble,  sphere,  among  the  master 
intellects  of  mankind.^ 

The  difficulties  against  which  the  new  entertainment  had  to 
struggle  were  very  great.  Addison  opposed  it  bitterly  in  the 
'  Spectator.'  The  partisans  of  the  regular  drama  denounced  it 
as  an  absurd  and  mischievous  novelty.  It  had  to  encounter  the 
strong  popular  prejudice  against  foreigners  and  Papists.  It  was 
weakened  by  perpetual  quarrels  of  composers  and  singers,  and 
it  was  supported  chiefly  by  the  small  and  capricious  circle  of 
fashionable  society.  In  1717  the  Italian  theatre  was  closed  for 
want  of  support,  but  it  revived  in  1720  under  the  auspices  of 
Handel.  The  extraordinaiy  success  of  the  'Beggar's  Opera,'  which 
appeared  in  1728,  for  a  time  threw  it  completely  in  the  shade. 
Tl\e  music  of  Handel  was  deserted,  and  the  Italian  theatre  again 
closed.  It  reopened  in  the  following  year  under  the  joint  direc- 
tion of  Handel  and  of  Heidegger,  a  Swiss,  famous  for  his  ugli- 
ness, his  impudence,  and  his  skill  in  organising  public  amuse- 
ments ;  and  it  continued  to  flourish  until  a  quarrel  broke  out 
between  Handel  and  the  singer  Senesino.  The  great  nobles, 
who  were  the  chief  supporters  of  the  opera,  took  the  side  of  the 
singer,  set  up,  in  1733,  a  rival  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields, 
attracted  to  it  Heidegger  and  most  of  the  best  singers,  made  it 
their  special  object  to  ruin  Handel,  and  succeeded  in  so  govern- 

'  Some  say  that  Sigrnor  Bononcini 

Compared  to  Handel  is  a  ninny ; 
■  Others  aver  that  to  him  Handel 

Is  scarcely  fit  to  hold  a  candle. 

Strange  that  such  difference  should  be 

'Twixt  tweedledum  and  tweedledee. 

•  Burney's  Hist,  of  Music.    Schol-       Eemaitix,  vol.  i.  pt.  i.  p.  150. 
Cher's     Life    of    Handel.      Byrom's 
VOL.  I.  38 


578  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  r?. 

inff  the  course  of  fashion  that  his  theatre  was  almost  deserted. 
The  King,  it  is  true,  steadily  supported  him,  and  Queen  Caro- 
line, with  the  tact  she  usually  showed  in  discovering  the  highest 
talent  in  the  country,  threw  her  whole  enthusiasm  into  his  cause  ; 
but  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  was  in  violent  opposition  to  his 
father,  took  the  opposite  side,  and  the  Court  could  not  save 
the  great  musician  from  ruin.  '  The  King  and  Queen,'  says 
Lord  Hervey,  '  sat  freezing  constantly  at  his  empty  Haymarket 
opera,  whilst  the  Prince,  with  the  chief  of  the  nobility,  went  as 
constantly  to  that  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields."  Handel  struggled 
for  some  time  vainly  against  the  stream  ;  all  the  savings  he  had 
amassed  were  lost,  and  his  career  was  for  a  time  ended  by  bank- 
ruptcy in  T737. 

The  effect,  however,  was  only  to  make  him  turn  more  exclu- 
sively to  that  nobler  and  loftiei  form  of  music  in  which  he  had 
no  rival.  Like  the  great  blind  poet  of  Puritanism,  whom  in  more 
than  one  respect  he  resembled,  he  was  indeed  one  of  those  whose 
lips  the  Seraphim  had  touched  and  purified  with  the  hallowed 
fire  from  the  altar ;  and  it  was  only  when  interpreting  the  highest 
religious  emotions  that  his  transcendent  genius  was  fully  felt. 
If  it  be  true  that  music  is  in  modern  art  what  painting  was  in 
the  Renaissance  and  what  sculpture  was  in  antiquity,  the  name 
of  Handel  can  be  placed  little  below  those  of  Eaphael  and  of 
Phidias,  and  it  is  to  his  sacred  music  that  his  pre-eminence  is 
mainly  due.  To  recall  sacred  music  from  the  neglect  into  which 
it  had  fallen  in  England  had  long  been  his  desire.  In  1713  he 
had  composed  a  grand  '  Te  Deura  '  and  '  Jubilate '  in  celebration 
of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  From  1718  to  1721  he  had  been 
organist  to  the  chapel  of  the  Duke  of  Chandos.  He  introduced  for 
the  first  time  organ  concerts  into  England  ;  and,  in  addition  to 
many  beautiful  anthems,  he  composed  his  oratorio  of  '  Esther '  for 

'  Lord  Hervey's  Mevioirs,  i.  314.  able  emplojTnent  for  people  of  quality, 
The  Princess  Royal  was  equally  or  the  ruin  of  one  poor  fellow  [Han- 
enthusiastic.  The  King  said,  with  del]  so  generous  or  so  good-natured 
good-nature  and  good  sense,  '  He  did  a  scheme  as  to  do  much  honour  to 
not  think  setting  oneself  at  the  head  the  undertakers,  whether  they  suc- 
of  a  faction  of  fiddlers  a  very  honour-  ceeded  or  not.' 


CH.  IV.  HANDEL.  579 

the  Duke  of  Chandos's  chapel.  Oratorios  had  been  invented  in  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  by  St.  Philip  Neri  in  order  to 
counteract  the  attractions  of  the  theatre,  but  they  had  hitlierto 
been  absolutely  unknown  in  England.  '  Esther '  was  brought 
upon  the  public  stage  for  the  first  time  in  1732.  It  was  fol- 
lowed in  1733  by '  Deborah  '  and  by  '  Athalie,'  in  1738  by '  Israel 
in  Egypt,'  in  1740  by  '  Saul.'  The  earliest  of  these  great  com- 
positions were  received  with  considerable  applause,  but  the  last 
two  were  almost  utterly  neglected.  The  musical  education  of  the 
public  was  not  sufficient  to  appreciate  them ;  the  leaders  of 
fashion  who  professed  to  regulate  taste  in  matters  of  art  steadily 
and  vindictively  derided  them ;  and  the  King  and  Queen 
incurred  no  small  ridicule  for  their  persistent  admiration  of 
Handel.  A  story  is  told  of  Chesterfield  leaving  tlie  empty 
theatre  in  which  an  oratorio  was  being  sung  before  the  King,  and 
giving  as  his  reason  that  he  did  not  desire  to  intrude  on  the 
privacy  of  his  sovereign.  Horace  Walpole,  who  assumed  the 
language  of  a  great  critic  in  matters  of  art,  but  whose  cold 
heart  and  feebly  fastidious  taste  were  usually  incapable  of  appre- 
ciating any  high  form  of  excellence,  sneered  at  Handel,  as  he 
afterwards  sneered  at  Garrick  ;  and  it  came  to  be  looked  upon  in 
fashionable  circles  as  one  of  the  signs  of  good  taste  to  ridicule 
his  music'  Some  ladies  of  position  actually  engaged  a  famous 
mimic  and  comic  singer  to  set  up  a  puppet-show  in  the  hope  of 
drawing  away  the  people    from  Handel,^  and  with  the  same 

'  Fielding  has  noticed   this  in  a  'Advice,' and  the  accompanying  note, 

characteristic  passage.      'It  was  Mr.  Again  shall  Handel  raise  his  laurelled  brow, 

Western's  custom   everj'  afternoon,  as  Again  shall  harmony  with  rapture  glow  ! 

„    v„    „.„,  /i,.„v,i-    +«    i,^-,,.  Vm'c.  The  spells  dissolve,  the  combination  breaks, 

soon  as    he    was  diunk    to    hear  his  And  Punch,  no  longer  Fra^l's  rival,  fqueaks. 

daughter  play  on   the   harpsichord ;  j^^  Russel  falls  a  sacrinco  to  whim, 

lor  he    was   a  great   lover  of    music.  And  starts  amazed  in  Newgate  from  his  dream, 
and,  perhaps,  liad  he  lived  in  town,  ^"'^  ^^'^-^■ 

might  have  passed  as  a  connoisseur,  Russel  was  a  famous  mimic  and  singer 

for  he  always  excepted  against  the  set  up  by  certain  ladies  of  quality  to 

tinest  compositions  of  Mr.  Handel ;  he  oppose  Handel.    When  the  current  of 

never  relished  any  music  but  what  fashion  changed  he  sank  into  debt, 

was  light  and  airy ;  and,  indeed,  his  and  was  confined  in  Newgate,  where 

most  favourite  tunes  were  "  Old  Sir  lie  lost  his  reason.    A  small  subscrip- 

Simon,  the   King,"   "  St.  George   lie  tion  was  with  difficulty  raised  among 

was  for  England,"  "  Bobbing  Joan,"  his  patronesses  to  procure  his  admis- 

and  some  others.' — Tom-  Jones.  sion  into  Bedlam. 

^  See     Smollett's     poem     called 


580  ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  iv. 

view  they  specially  selected  the  days  on  which  an  oratorio  was 
performed,  for  their  card  parties  or  concerts.' 

There  was,  of  course,  a  certain  party  in  his  favour.  Arbuth- 
not,  who  was  himself  an  excellent  musician,  steadily  supported 
him.  Pope,  though  perfectly  insensible  to  the  charm  of  music, 
resting  on  the  opinion  of  Arbuthnot,  took  the  same  side.  A 
statue  of  Handel  by  Eoubiliac  was  erected  in  Yauxhall  in  1738, 
but  of  the  general  depreciation  and  condemnation  of  his  music 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  death  of  Queen  Caroline,  in  1737, 
deprived  him  of  his  warmest  patron,  and  he  composed  an 
anthem  for  her  funeral,  which  Dr.  Burney  regarded  as  the  most 
perfect  of  all  his  works.  After  the  bankruptcy  of  his  theatre, 
and  the  almost  total  failure  of  his  two  last  oratorios,  he  felt  it 
necessary  to  bend  before  the  storm,  and  he  resolved  for  a  time 
to  fly  where  his  works  '  would  be  out  of  the  reach  of  enmity 
and  prejudice.'  He  had  already  composed  the  music  for  the 
greatest  of  all  his  works,  but  he  would  not  risk  its  production 
in  London,  and  he  adopted  the  resolution  of  bringing  it  out  for 
the  first  time  in  Dublin. ^ 

The  visit  of  Handel  to  Ireland  in  the  December  of  1741  has 
lately  been  investigated  in  aU  its  details,^  and  it  forms  a  pleas- 
ing episode  in  the  Irish  history  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It 
appears  that  music  had  for  some  time  been  passionately  culti- 
vated in  the  Irish  capital,  that  a  flourishing  society  had  been 

'  Scholcher. 

-  But  soon,  ah  soon,  rebellion  will  commence 
If  music  meanly  borrow  aid  from  sense  : 
Strong  in  new  arms,  lo  !  giant  Handel  stands 
Like  bold  Briareus,  with  a  hundred  hands ; 
To  stir,  to  rouse,  to  shake  the  soul,  he  comes. 
And  Jove's  own  thunders  follow  Mars's  drums  ; 
Arrest  him,  Empress,  or  you  sleep  no  more. 
She  heard,  and  drove  him  to  the  Hibernian  shore. 

Dunciad,  bk.  iv. 
*  See  a  very  curious  and  interest-  the  stay  of  Handel  in  Ireland,  by 
ing  little  book,  called  An  Acccnint  of  the  publication  of  the  letters  of  Mrs. 
the  Visit  of  Handel  to  Dublin,  by  Delany,  who  was  then  living  near 
Horatio  Townsend  (Dublin,  1852).  Dublin,  and  who  was  a  friend  and 
Since  this  book  was  published,  a  little  ardent  admirer  of  Handel.  See,  too, 
additional  light  has  been  thrown  on       Bumey's  I£i»t.  of  Music,  iv.  661-662. 


CH.  IT.  HANDEL.  581 

formed  for  practising  it,  and  that  the  music  of  Handel  was 
akeady  in  great  favour.  It  was  customary  to  give  frequent  con- 
certs for  the  benefit  of  Dublin  charities,  and  one  of  these  chari- 
ties was  at  this  time  attracting  great  attention.  The  revelation 
of  the  frightful  abuses  in  the  debtors'  prisons  in  Ireland  had 
made  a  deep  impression,  and  a  society  was  formed  for  ameliorat- 
ino-  the  condition  of  the  inmates,  compounding  with  their  credi- 
tors and  releasing  as  many  as  possible  from  prison.  In  the  year 
1739  no  less  than  188  had  been  freed  from  a  condition  of  ex- 
treme misery,  and  the  charity  still  continued.  It  was  for  the 
benefit  of  this  and  of  two  older  charities '  that  the  'Messiah'  of 
Handel  was  first  produced,  in  Dublin,  in  April  1742.  In  the 
interval  that  had  elapsed  since  his  arrival  in  Ireland  its  composer 
had  abundant  evidence  that  the  animosity  which  had  pursued 
him  so  bitterly  in  England  had  not  crossed  the  Channel.  In  a 
remarkable  letter  dated  December  29,  written  to  his  friend 
Charles  Jennens,^  who  had  selected  the  passages  of  Scripture  for 
the  '  Messiah,'  Handel  describes  the  success  of  a  series  of  concerts 
which  he  had  begun  :  '  The  nobility  did  me  the  honour  to  make 
amongst  themselves  a  subscription  for  six  nights,  which  did  fill  a 
room  of  600  persons,  so  that  I  needed  not  sell  one  single  ticket  at 
the  door ;  and,  without  vanity,  the  performance  was  received  with 
a  general  approbation.  ...  I  cannot  sufficiently  express 
the  kind  treatment  I  receive  here,  but  the  politeness  of  this 
generous  nation  cannot  be  unknown  to  you,  so  I  let  you  judge 
of  the  satisfaction  I  enjoy,  passing  my  time  with  honour,  profit, 
and  pleasure.'  A  new  series  of  concerts  was  performed  with  equal 
success,  and  on  April  8,  1-742,  the  'Messiah'  was  rehearsed, 
and  on  the  13th  it  was  for  the  first  time  publicly  performed. 
The  choirs  of  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  and  of  Christ's  Chm-ch  were 
enlisted  for  the  occasion.  Mrs.  Cibber  and  Mrs.  Avolio  sang  the 
chief  parts.  The  Viceroy,  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  the  leading 
Fellows  of  Trinity  College,  and  most  of  the  other  dignitaries 

'  Mercer's     Hospital     and     the      gentleman — a  Nonjuror.    Townsend, 
Charilable  Infirmary.  p.  81. 

'  He  was  a  Leicestershire  country 


582  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  it. 

in  Church  and  State,  were  present,  and  the  success  was  over- 
whelming and  immediate.  The  crowds  who  thronged  the 
Music  Hall  were  so  great  that  an  advertisement  was  issued 
begging  the  ladies  for  the  occasion  to  discard  their  hoops,  and 
no  discordant  voice  appears  to  have  broken  the  unanimity  of 
applause.  Handel,  whose  sensitive  nature  had  been  embittered 
by  long  neglect  and  hostility,  has  recorded  in  touching  terms 
the  completeness  of  his  triumph.  He  remained  in  Ireland  till 
the  following  August,  a  welcome  guest  in  every  circle ;  and  he 
is  said  to  have  expressed  his  surprise  and  admiration  at  the 
beauty  of  those  national  melodies  which  were  then  unknown 
out  of  Ireland,  but  which  the  poetry  of  Moore  has,  in  our  own 
century,  carried  over  the  world. 

On  his  return  to  London,  however,  he  found  the  hostility 
against  him  but  little  diminished.  The 'Messiah,' when  first 
produced  in  London,  if  it  did  not  absolutely  fail,  was  but  coldly 
received,  and  it  is  shamefid  and  melancholy  to  relate  that  in 
1745  Handel  was  for  a  second  time  reduced  to  bankruptcy.  The 
first  really  unequivocal  success  he  obtained  in  England  for  many 
years  was  his  '  Judas  Maccabaeus,'  which  was  composed  in  1746, 
and  brought  out  in  the  following  year.  It  was  dedicated  to 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  and  was  intended  to  commemorate 
his  victory  at  Culloden,  and  this  fact,  as  well  as  the  enthusiastic 
support  of  the  London  Jews,  who  welcomed  it  as  a  glorifica- 
tion of  a  great  Jewish  hero,  contributed  largely  to  its  success. 
From  this  time  the  current  of  fashion  suddenly  changed.  When 
the  '  Messiah'  was  again  produced  at  Covent  Garden  in  1750  it 
was  received  with  general  enthusiasm,  and  the  '  Te  Deum '  on 
the  occasion  of  the  victory  of  Dettingen,  and  the  long  series  of 
oratorios  which  Handel  brought  out  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life, 
were  scarcely  less  successful.  In  1751  he  became  completely 
blind,  but  he  still  continued  to  compose  music  and  to  play 
publicly  upon  the  organ.  Among  other  pieces  he  performed 
his  own  'Samson,'  and  while  the  choir  sang  to  the  pathetic 
strains  of  Handel  those  noble  lines  in  which  Milton  represented 
the  Jewish  hero  lamenting  the  darkness  that  encompassed  him, 


CH.  IV.  IMMORALITY  OF  THE  STAGE.  583 

a  thrill  of  sympathetic  emotion  passed  through  the  crowded 
audience  as  they  looked  upon  the  old  blind  musician,  who  sat 
before  them  at  the  organ.'  The  popularity  of  his  later  days 
restored  his  fortunes,  and  he  acquired  considerable  wealth.'* 
He  died  on  Good  Friday  in  1759,  after  a  residence  in  England 
of  forty-nine  years,  and  he  obtained  the  well-won  honour  of  a 
tomb  in  Westminster  Abbey.' 

The  great  impulse  given  by  Handel  to  sacred  music,  and  the 
naturalisation  of  the  opera  in  England,  are  the  two  capital  events 
in  English  musical  history  during  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Apart  from  these  musical  performances  the  love 
for  dramatic  entertainments  appears  to  have  greatly  increased, 
though  the  theatre  never  altogether  recovered  the  blow  it  had 
received  during  the  Puritan  ascendency.  So  much  has  been  said 
of  the  necessary  effect  of  theatrical  amusements  in  demoralising 
nations  that  it  is  worthy  of  special  notice  that  there  were  ten 
or  eleven  theatres  open  in  London  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
and  a  still  greater  number  in  the  reign  of  her  successor,^  whereas 
in  the  incomparably  more  profligate  reign  of  Charles  II.  there 
were  only  two.  Even  these  proved  too  many,  and  in  spite  of 
the  attraction  of  actresses,  who  were  then  for  the  first  time  per- 
mitted upon  the  stage,  and  of  the  great  histrionic  powers  of 
Hart  and  of  Betterton,  it  was  found  necessary  to  unite  the 
companies  in  1684.^  The  profligacy  of  the  theatre  during  the 
generation  that  followed  the  Eestoration  can  hardly  be  exag- 
gerated, and  it  continued  with  little  abatement  during  two 
reigns.  The  character  of  the  plays  was  such  that  few  ladies  of 
respectability  and  position  ventured  to  appear  at  the  first  repre- 
sentation of  anew  comedy,  and  those  whose  curiosity  triumphed 
over  their  delicacy  usually  came  masked — a  custom  which  at 
this  time  became  very  common,  and  which  natm'ally  led  to  grave 

'  Mrs.    Delanys    Cm-respondence,  Music. 
iii.  177.  ■•  Compare  Collier's  Annals  of  the 

2  Ibid.     iii.     549-550.      He    left  Stage,  i.  34.S.     Chalmers'  Accmna  of 

20,000^.  the  Early  English  Stage. 

'  Scholcher's     lAfe    of    Handel.  *  Gibber's  Apology,  ch.  iv. 

Bumey  and  Hawkins's   Histories  of 


584  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

abuses.!  By  the  time  of  the  Eevolution,  however,  the  move- 
ment of  dissipation  had  somewhat  spent  its  force,  and  the 
appearance  in  1698  of  Collier's  well-known  '  Short  View  of  the 
Stage,'  had  a  sensible  and  an  immediate  effect.  Though  the 
author  was  a  vehement  Nonjuror,  William  expressed  warm 
approbation  of  his  work,  and  a  Eoyal  order  was  issued  to  restrain 
the  abuses  of  the  stage.  The  Master  of  the  Eevels,  who  then 
licensed  plays,  began  to  exercise  his  function  with  some  severity, 
and  a  favourable  cliange  passed  over  public  opinion.  In  the 
reign  of  Anne  the  reformation  was  much  aided  by  the  prohibi- 
tion of  masks  in  the  theatre.^  But  although  a  certain  improve- 
ment was  effected,  much  still  remained  to  be  done.  Grreat 
scandal  was  caused  by  a  prologue,  written  by  Garth,  and  spoken 
at  the  opening  of  the  Haymarket  theatre  in  1705,  which 
congratulated  the  world  that  the  stage  was  beginning  to  take 
the  place  of  the  Church.^  The  two  Houses  of  Convocation,  in 
a  representation  to  the  Queen  in  1711,  dwelt  strongly  on  the 
immorality  of  the  drama.*  Swift  placed  its  degraded  condition 
among  the  foremost  causes  of  the  corruption  of  the  age,^  and  it 
is  remarkable  that  although  English  play-writers  borrowed  very 

'  « While  our  authors  took  these  and  rarely  came  upon  the  first  days 

extraordinary    liberties    with    their  of   acting  but  in  masks  (then  daily 

wit,  I  remember  the  ladies  were  then  worn,  and  admitted  in  the  pit,  side 

observed  to  be    decently  afraid  of  boxes,  and  gallery).'  Gibber's  ^l^o%y, 

venturing  barefaced  to  a  new  comedy  ch.  viii.     So  Pope  : — 
till  they  had  been  assured  they  might  The  fair  sat  panting  at  a  courtier's  play, 

do  it  without  the  risque  of  insult  to  And  not  a  mask  went  unimproved  away, 

their  modesty ;  or  if  their  curiosity  ^''"^  ""  '^'-'''"'"''  P'"  "•. 

were  too  strong  for  their  patience,  they  -  See   Davies'   Life    of    Gan'icJt, 

took  care  at  least  to  save  appearances,  ii.  355  (ed.  1780). 

^  In  the  good  days  of  ghostly  ignorance, 
How  did  cathedrals  rise  and  zeal  advance  ! 
The  merry  monks  said  orisons  at  ease, 
Large  were  their  meals,  and  light  their  penances. 
Pardons  for  sins  were  purchased  with  estates, 
And  none  but  rogues  in  rags  died  reprobates. 
But  now  that  pious  pageantry's  no  more 
And  stages  thrive  as  churches  did  before. 

See  the  Harleian  Miscellany,  ii.  21. 

*  Harleian  Miscellany,  ii.  21.  1709.  He  says:  'It  is  worth  observing 

*  See  some  admirable  remarks  on  the  distributive  justice  of  the  authors, 
the  subject  in  his  Project  for  the  which  is  constantly  applied  to  the 
Advancement  of  Religion,  written  in      punishment  of  virtue  and  the  reward 


CH.  IV.  IMMORALITY   OF  THE  STAGE.  585 

largely  from  the  French,  the  English  stage  was  for  inferior  to 
that  of  France  in  decorum,  modesty,  and  morality.  In  this 
respect  at  least  there  was  no  disposition  to  imitate  French 
manners,  and  we  may,  indeed,  trace  among  English  writers  no 
small  jealousy  of  the  dramatic  supremacy  of  .J'rance.  Dryden 
continually  expressed  it,  and  Shadwell  displayed  it  in  a  strain 
of  grotesque  insolence.  Among  his  plays  was  one  called  '  The 
Miser,'  based  upon  one  of  the  most  perfect  of  the  matchless 
comedies  of  Moliere.  Not  content  with  degrading  this  noble 
play  by  the  addition  of  coarse,  obscene,  and  insipid  jests  which 
French  taste  would  never  have  tolerated,  Shadwell  prefixed  to 
it  a  preface  in  which  he  gives  us  with  amusing  candour  his 
own  estimate  of  the  comparative  merits  of  Moliere  and  of  him- 
self. '  The  foundation  of  this  play,'  he  said,  '  I  took  from  one 
of  Moliere's,  called  "L'Avare,"  but  having  too  few  persons  and 
too  little  action  for  an  English  theatre,  I  added  to  both  so  much 
that  I  may  call  more  than  half  this  play  my  own ;  and  I  think 
I  may  say  without  vanity  that  Moliere's  part  of  it  has  not 
suffered  in  my  hands ;  nor  did  I  ever  know  a  French  comedy 
made  use  of  by  the  worst  of  our  poets  that  was  not  bettered  by 
them.  'Tis  not  barrenness  of  wit  or  invention  that  makes  us 
borrow  from  the  French,  but  laziness,  and  this  was  the  occasion 
of  my  making  use  of  "  L'Avare." ' ' 

Shadwell  was  a  poor  poet,  but  he  was  for  a  long  time 
a  popular  dramatist,  and  he  was  sufficiently  conspicuous  to  be 
appointed  poet-laureate  by  William  in  the  place  of  Dryden. 
The  preface  I  have  cited,  coming  from  such  a  pen,  throws  a 
curious  light  upon  the  national   taste.     Addison  and  Steele, 

ol  vice ;  directly  opposite  to  the  rules  to  be  committed  behind  the  scenes  as 

of  their  best  criticks,  as  well  as  to  part  of  the  action.' 
the  practice  of  dramatick  poets  in  all  '  So,  too,  in  the  Prologue  of  the 

other  ages   and  countries.  ...  I  do  play — 

not  remember  that  our  English  poets  ^^^^„„^,  „,„„„   ■    „v.  i,  .  .^.  , 

~        T  •     •      1  i  Irench  plays,  in  which  true  wits   as  rarely 

ever  suffered  a  criminal    amour  to  foi:nd 

succeed    upon    the    stage    until    the  As  mines  of  silver  are  in  English  gronnd. 
reign  of  Charles  II.     Ever  since  that  »  »  •  •  • 

time  the  alderman  is  made  a  cuckold,  For  our  good-natured  nation  thinks  it  fit 

the  deluded  virgin  is  debauched,  and  ^'o  count  French  toys  good  wares,  French  nou- 
adultery  and  fornication  are  supposed         "^^"^  "'  ' 


586  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

who  contributed  in  so  many  Avays  to  turn  the  stream  of  fashion 
in  the  direction  of  morality,  did  something  at  least,  to  in- 
troduce French  decorum  into  the  English  drama.  Both  of 
them  wrote  playg,  which  though  of  no  great  merit,  had  their 
hour  of  noisy  popularity,  and  were  at  least  scrupulously 
moral.  '  I  never  heard  of  any  plays,'  said  Parson  Adams,  in 
one  of  the  novels  of  Fielding,  'fit  for  a  Christian  to  read 
but  "  Cato  "  and  the  "  Conscious  Lovers,"  and  I  must  own 
in  the  latter  there  are  some  things  almost  solemn  enough  for 
a  sermon.' '  The  example,  however,  was  not  very  generally 
followed,  and  some  of  the  comedies  of  Fielding  in  point  of 
coarseness  are  little  if  at  all  superior  to  those  of  Wycherley. 
Dr.  Herring,  who  was  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
when  Court  chaplain  and  preacher  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  de- 
nounced the  'Beggar's  Opera'  of  Gay  with  great  asperity 
from  the  pulpit;  ^  and  Sir  John  Bernard,  in  1735,  brought  the 
condition  of  the  theatre  before  the  House  of  Commons,  com- 
plaining bitterly  that  there  were  now  six  theatres  in  London, 
and  that  they  were  sources  of  great  corruption.  In  the  course 
of  the  debate  one  of  his  chief  supporters  observed  '  that  it  was 
no  less  surprising  than  shameful  to  see  so  great  a  change  for 
the  worse  in  the  temper  and  inclinations  of  the  British  nation, 
who  were  now  so  extravagantly  addicted  to  lewd  and  idle 
diversions  that  the  number  of  playhouses  in  London  was  double 
that  of  Paris  .  .  .  that  it  was  astonishing  to  all  Europe  that 
Italian  eunuchs  and  signoras  should  have  set  salaries  equal 
to  those  of  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury  and  Judges  of  England.'  •'' 
On  this  occasion  nothing  effectual  was  done,  but  soon  after  the 
theatre  took  a  new  form  which  was  well  calculated  to  alarm 
politicians.     Fielding,  following  an  example  which  had  been 

'  Joseph  Andrews,  book   iii.   ch.  the  first  that  were  written  expressly 

11.    Hallam  says,  '  Steele's  Conscious  with    a    view    not    to    imitate    the 

Lovers  is  the  first  comedy  [after  the  manners  but  to  reform  the  morals  of 

Restoration]   which    can    be    called  the    age.'  —  Lectures    on    the    Comic 

moral.' — Hist,  of  Literature,  iv.  p.  284.  Writers,  p.  341. 

Hazlitt  complains  of  the  too  didactic  -  Swift's   Correspondence,  ii.  243. 

character  of  the  plays  of  Steele,  and  Intelligencer,  No.  III. 

says,  '  The  comedies  of   Steele  were  *  Pari.  Hist.  is..  948. 


cu.  IV.  THE  LICENSING  ACT.  587 

set  by  Gay,  made  it  the  vehicle  of  political  satire,  and  in  his 
'  Pasquin '  and  his  '  Historical  Register '  he  ridiculed  Walpole 
and  the  corruption  at  elections.  Another  play,  called  '  The 
Golden  Rump,'  submitted  to  the  director  of  Lincoln's  Inn 
Theatre  and  handed  over  by  him  to  tlie  minister,  was  said  to 
have  contained  a  bitter  satire  against  the  King  and  the  reign- 
ing family.  Walpole,  relying  on  these,  carried  through  Parlia- 
ment in  1737  his  Licensing  Act,  diminishing  the  number  of 
playhouses,  and  at  the  same  time  authorising  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  to  prohibit  any  dramatic  representation,  and 
providing  that  no  new  play  or  addition  to  an  old  play  could  be 
acted  if  he  had  not  first  inspected  it.  The  power  of  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  over  the  theatre  ^vas  not  a  new  thing,  and  it  had 
very  recently  been  exercised  for  the  suppression  of  the  sequel 
to  the  '  Beggar's  Opera '  by  Gay ;  but  it  had  hitherto  been  un- 
defined or  very  rarely  employed,  and  the  institution  of  an 
authorised  and  systematic  censorship  Avas  opposed  by  Pulteney, 
and  denounced  with  especial  vehemence  by  Chesterfield,  as  the 
beginning  of  a  crusade  against  the  liberty  of  the  press.  Among 
the  plays  that  were  proscribed  under  the  new  system  were  the 
'  Gustavus  Vasa '  of  Brooke,  and  the  '  Eleanora '  of  Thomson  ; 
the  rising  fashion  of  political  comedies  was  crushed,  but  in 
general  the  licensing  power  was  employed  with  much  modera- 
tion and  simply  in  the  interests  of  morality.' 

By  far  the  greatest  dramatic  success  during  the  first  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century  was  the  '  Beggar's  Opera '  of  Gay.  It, 
for  a  time,  as  we  have  seen,  ruined  the  Italian  opera ;  and 
in  one  of  the  notes  to  the  *Dunciad'  we  have  a  curious 
picture  of  the  enthusiasm  it  excited.  It  was  acted  in 
London  without  interruption  for  sixty-three  days,  and  was 
received  with  equal  applause  in  the  following  season.  It  was 
played  fifty  times  in  both  Bristol  and  Bath.     It  spread  rapidly 

'  A  very  full  history  of  Walpole's  licence    as    vagrants    or  vagahonds. 

measure  is  given  in  Coxe's  Lije,  ch.  See,  too,  Maty's  Life  of  Chesterfield, 

xlvii.     It  was  ostensibly  an   Act  to  Lawrence's  lAfe  of  Fielding,   Pari. 

amend  a  law  passed  under  Anne  which  Delates. 
treated  players  who  acted  without 


588  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  iv. 

through  all  the  great  towns  of  the  kingdom,  penetrated  to 
Scotland  and  Wales,  and  was  brilliantly  successful  m  Ireland. 
Its  favourite  songs  appeared  on  ladies'  fans  and  on  drawing- 
room  screens,  and  a  hitherto  obscure  actress,  by  playing  its 
principal  part,  became  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  and  popular 
personages  in  the  country.  In  general  the  prevailing  taste 
in  dramatic  literature  during  the  greater  part  of  this  period 
was  very  low.  The  great  change  which  had  passed  over  the 
social  position  of  authors  was  peculiarly  prejudicial  to  the  drama, 
which  consists  in  a  great  degree  of  sketches  of  the  manners  of 
society,^  and  there  was  little  or  no  demand  for  plays  of  a  high 
order.  Slight  and  coarse  comedies,  or  gaudy  spectacles  with 
rope  dancers  and  ballets,  appear  to  have  been  in  the  greatest 
favour,  and  in  more  serious  pfeces  the  love  of  butchering,  so 
characteristic  of  the  English  stage,  was  long  a  standing  reproach 
among  foreign  critics.^  Masquerades  were  at  this  time  extremely 
popular,  and  they  had  a  considerable  influence  over  theatrical 
taste.  Heidegger  organised  them  on  a  magnificent  scale,  and 
they  were  warmly  patronised  by  the  King,  who  was  extremely 
angry  with  Bishop  Gribson  for  denouncing  them.  In  one  cele- 
brated masquerade  the  King  was  present  in  disguise,  while  the 
well-known  maid  of  honour.  Miss  Chudleigh,  scandalised  all  de- 
cent persons  by  appearing  almost  naked  as  Iphigenia.'  In  1755, 
after  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon,  they  were  for  a  short  time  sup- 
pressed, lest  they  should  call  down  a  similar  judgment  upon 
London.*  The  English  form  of  pantomime,  which  is  nearly 
related  to  this  type  of  amusement,  and  which,  after  more  than 
150  years  retains  its  popularity,  was  invented  by  Rich  in  1717.'^ 
For  a  few  years  after  the  Eestoration  the  acting  of  Hart  and 

'  As  Horace  Walpole  said  :  '  Wliy  June  14,  1787. 
aie  there  so  few  genteel   comedies  '^  Tatler,'No.l34:.  Spectator, '^oAi. 

but  because  most  comedies  are  written  ^  Walpole 's     Letters     to     Mann. 

by  men  not  of  that  sphere  ?  Etheridge,  May,  1749. 

Congreve,    Vanbrugh,     and     Gibber  ■*  Walpole's  Mem.  of  George  IL, 

wrote  genteel  comedy  because  they  iii.  p.  98.     Bedford  ascribed  the  great 

lived  in  the  best  company  ;  and  Mrs.  storm  of  1703  to  the  iniquities  of  the 

Oldfield  played  it  so  well  because  she  stage. — Bedford  on  the  Stage,  p.  26. 
not  only  followed  but  often  set  the  *  Davies'  Life  of  Garrick,  i.  92- 

fashion.' — To  the  Countess  of  Osswy,  93.     Gibber's  Apology,  ch.  xv. 


CH.  V.  THEATRICAL  TASTE.  589 

Betterton  in  some  degree  supported  Shakespeare  upon  the  stage, 
but  a  change  had  taken  place  in  the  taste  and  in  the  manners  of 
the  nation,  which  made  his  plays  appear  barbarous  or  insipid. 
Even  Dryden,  who  defended  him,  only  ventured  with  some 
timidity  to  pronounce  him  to  be  equal,  if  not  superior  to 
Ben  Jonson ;  ^  and  the  depreciating  or  contemptuous  lan- 
guage which  Pepys  employed  about  nearly  every  Shakespear- 
ian play  ^  that  he  witnessed  probably  reflected  very  fairly 
the  sentiments  of  the  average  playgoer.  Many  of  the  greatest 
plays  were  soon  completely  banished  from  the  stage,  and  the 
few  which  retained  any  popularity  were  re-written,  printed 
under  other  names,  or  at  least  largely  altered,  reduced  to  a 
French  standard  of  correctness,  or  enlivened  with  music  and 
dancing.  Thus  '  Eomeo  and  Juliet '  was  superseded  by  the 
'  Caius  Marius '  of  Otway,  '  Measure  for  Measure '  by  the  '  Law 
against  Lovers '  of  Davenant,  the  '  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor '  by 
Dennis's  '  Comical  Gallant,'  '  Eichard  II.'  by  Tate's  '  Sicilian 
Tyrant,'  'Cymbeline'  by  Durfey's  'Injured  Princess,'  'The 
Merchant  of  Venice '  by  Lord  Lansdowne's  '  Jew  of  Venice.' 
'  Macbeth '.  was  re-cast  by  Davenant,  '  Eichard  III.'  by  Gibber, 
'  The  Tempest '  by  both  Davenant  and  Shadwell,  '  Coriolanus ' 
by  Dennis,  and  'King  Lear'  by  Tate.^ 

The  revolution  of  taste  which  gradually  reinstated  in  his 
ascendency  the  greatest  writer  of  England,  and  perhaps  of  the 
world,  and  made  his  ideas  and  language  familiar  to  the  upper 
and  middle  classes  of  the  nation,  is  certainly  not  less  worthy  of 
commemoration  than  any  of  the  military  or  political  incidents 
of  the  time.  Its  effect  in  educating  the  English  mind  can 
hardly  be  overrated,  and  its  moral  influence  was  very  great.  It 
was    partly  literary   and    partly  dramatic.     The    first  critical 

'  Dryden's     Essay    on    Dramatic  thing  madf3  up    of    many  patches,' 

Poetry.  v/ith  nothing  good  in  it  '  besides  the 

*  He     calls    Midsummer    Nighfs  shows  and  processions.'     Macbeth  he 

Dream  ' the  most  insipid,  ridiculous  acknowledged   was    'a  pretty   good 

play  '  he  ever  saw ;  the  Taming  of  the  play.' 

Shrem  'a  silly  play;'    Othello  {which  '  Malone's    ITistm-ieal  Account  of 

he  appears  at  first  to  have  liked),  'a  the  English  Stage. 
mean  thing  ; '  Henry  VIII.  '  a  simple 


590  ENGLAND   IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

edition  of  Shakespeare  was  that  of  Kowe,  which  was  published  in 
1709 ;  and,  before  half  the  century  had  passed,  it  was  followed 
by  those  of  Pope,  Theobald,  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer,  and  War- 
burton.  Dr.  Johnson  has  noticed  as  a  proof  of  the  paucity 
of  readers  in  the  seventeenth  century  *that  the  nation  had  been 
satisfied  from  1623  to  1664,  that  is,  forty-one  years,  with  only 
two  editions  of  Shakespeare,  which  probably  did  not  together 
make  1,000  copies.'  *  By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
liowever,  there  had  been  thirteen  editions,  and  of  these,  nine 
had  appeared  within  the  last  forty  years.^  It  is  obvious  from 
this  fact  that  the  interest  in  Shakespeare  was  steadily  increas- 
ing, and  that  the  critical  study  of  his  plays  was  becoming 
an  important  department  of  English  literature  ;  and  he  slowly 
reappeared  in  his  unaltered  form  upon  the  stage.  The  merit 
of  this  revival  has  often  been  ascribed  almost  exclusively  to 
Garrick,  but  in  truth  it  had  begun  before,  and  was  a  natural 
reflection  of  the  movement  in  literature.  Six  or  seven  years 
before  the  appearance  of  Garrick,  some  ladies  of  rank  formed 
a  '  Shakespearian  Club  '  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  by  their 
presence  or  encouragement  the  best  plays  of  Shakespeare.^ 
Soon  after  revivals  became  both  frequent  and  successful.  In 
1737  'King  John'  was  revived  at  Covent  Garden  for  the  first 
time  since  the  downfall  of  the  stage.  In  1738  the  second  part 
of  '  Henry  IV.,'  '  Henry  V.,'  and  the  first  part  of  '  Henry  VI.,' 
no  one  of  which  had  been  acted  for  forty  or  fifty  years,  were 
brought  upon  the  stage.  In  1740  'As  You  Like  It'  was 
reproduced  after  an  eclipse  of  forty  years,  and  had  a  con- 
siderable run.  In  February  1741  the  'Merchant  of  Venice' 
was  produced  in  its  original  form  for  the  first  time  after 
one  hundred  years,  and  Macklin  excited  the  most  enthusias- 
tic applause  by  his  representation  of  Shylock,  who  in  Lord 
Lansdowne's  version  of  the  play  had  been  reduced  to  insignifi- 
cant proportions.''     In  the  same  year  the  '  Winter's  Tale '  was 

'  Life  of  Miltan.  3  Davies'  Life  of  Gan-icli,  ii.  p. 

^  Knight's  Studies  of  Shakespeare,  224. 
p.  141.     See,  too,  Miller's  lietrospect  ^  See  an  interesting   account  of 

of  tlte  Eighteenth  Century,  iii.  48-49,  this  great  triumph  in  Kirkman's  lAfe 

^96-2*J7.  of  Macklin,  ii.  253-265. 


CH.  IV.  REVIVAL  OF  SHAKESPEARE.  591 

revived  after  one  hundred  years,  and  'All's  Well  that  Ends 
Well  for  the  first  time  since  the  death  of  Shakespeare  ;  and  a 
monument  of  the  great  poet  was  erected  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
paid  for  bytheproceeds  of  special  representations  at  the  two  great 
theatres.^  In  the  October  of  this  year  Garrick  appeared  for  the 
first  time  on  the  London  stage  in  the  cliaracter  of  Kichard  III.^ 
The  effects  of  the  talent  of  a  great  actor  are  necessarily  so 
extremely  evanescent  that  it  is  impossible  to  compare  with  much 
confidence  the  merits  of  those  who  have  long  passed  away. 
When,  however,  we  consider  the  extraordinary  versatility  of 
the  acting  of  Garrick,  and  the  extraordinary  impression  which 
during  a  long  series  of  years  it  made  upon  the  most  cultivated, 
as  well  as  upon  the  most  illiterate,  it  will  appear  probable  that 
he  has  never  been  surpassed  in  his  art — it  is  certain  that  he  had 
never  been  equalled  in  England  since  the  death  of  Betterton.^ 
The  grandson  of  one  of  those  refugees  who  had  been  expelled 
from  France  upon  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  he  is 
another  of  the  many  instances  of  the  benefits  which  England 
has  indirectly  derived  fx'om  the  intolerance  of  her  neighbours  ; 
and  in  two  respects  his  appearance  on  the  stage  has  a  real  im- 
portance in  the  history  of  the  English  mind.  He  was  before 
all  things  a  Shakespearian  actor,  and  he  did  more  than  any 
other  single  man  to  extend  the  popularity  and  increase  the 
reputation  of  the  great  dramatist.  He  usually  gave  seventeen 
or  eighteen  plays  of  Shakespeare  in   a  year.*      He  brought  out 

'  Mrs.  Delam/s  Lift,  ii.  139.  Pope  He  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey, 

wrote and  Steele  took  occasion  of  his  funeral 

After  one  hundrerl  and  thirty  yeai-s'  nap  to  devote  an  admirable  paper  in  the 

Enter  Shakespeare  with  a  loud"  clap.  Tatler  to  his  acting.    Sec,  too,  Gibber's 

•     -  JIalone's  Historical  Account  of  Apology.     Gibber  pronounced  him  as 

the    Eiiiilish    Stage,    292  294.       The  supreme  among  actors  as  Shakespeare 

interval   that  had  elapsed  since  the  among  poets.  A  few  other  particulars 

former  acting  of  each  of .  these  plays  relating  to   him   will    be    found   in 

is  given  by  Malone  on  the  authority  Gait's    Lives  of   the   Playcm.     Pope 

of    the   advertisements,    which  may  thought  Betterton  the  greatest  actor, 

not  always  have  been  absolutely  cor-  but  said  that  some  old  people  spoke 

j.g(j^_  of  Hart  as  his  superior.     Betterton 

8  The  impression  Betterton  made  died  in  1710.     Spence's  Anecdotes. 
in  his  day  seems  to  have  been  not  at  *  Davies'  Life  of  Garrick,  i.  114. 

all  less  than  that  made  by  Garrick. 


592  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  ly. 

their  beauties  with  all  the  skill  of  a  consummate  artist,  and  he 
at  the  same  time  produced  a  revolution  in  the  art  of  acting- 
very  similar  to  that  which  Kent  had  effected  in  the  art  of  gar- 
dening. A  habit  of  slow,  monotonous  declamation,  of  unnatural 
pomp,  and  of  a  total  disregard  for  historic  truth  in  theatrical 
costume,  had  become  general  on  the  English  stage,  and  the 
various  and  rapid  intonations  of  Garrick,  the  careful  and 
constant  study  of  nature  and  of  history  which  he  displayed 
both  in  his  acting  and  his  accessories,  had  all  the  effect  of 
novelty.^  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  a  similar  change  both  in 
oardening  and  in  acting  took  place  in  France  a  generation  later, 
and  was  in  a  great  degree  due  to  the  love  of  nature  and  the 
revolt  against  conventional  forms,  resulting  from  the  writings  of 
Kousseau.  Grarrick,  like  all  innovators,  had  to  encounter  at 
first  much  opposition.  Pope  aud  Fielding  were  warmly  in  his 
favour,  but  the  poet  Gray  declared  himself  '  stiff  in  opposition.' 
Horace  "Walpole  professed  himself  unable  to  see  the  merit  of 
the  new  performer.  Gibber,  who  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
school  of  Betterton,  was  equally  contemptuous,  and  the  leading 
actors  took  the  same  side.  Macklin  always  spoke  of  him  with 
the  greatest  bitterness.  Quin,  who  had  for  some  time  held  the 
foremost  rank  in  tragedy,  and  whose  ready  wit  made  him  a 
specially  formidable  opponent,  said,  '  If  the  young  fellow  is 
right,  I  and  the  rest  of  the  players  have  been  all  wrong ;'  and 
he  added,  '  Garrick  is  a  new  religion — Whitefield  was  followed 
for  a  time — but  they  will  all  come  to  church  again.'     Garrick 

'  See  the  preliminary  dissertation  it,  between  him  and  his  mother,  when 

toFoote's  Trc*?7i;s,  i.pp.  lii.,liii.  Mack-  you  told  me  he  acted  so  fine,  why, 

lin,  who  had  quarrelled  with  Garrick  Lord  help  me  !  any  man—  that  is,  any 

and  who  cordially  detested  him,  de-  good  man— that   has  such  a  mother 

scribed  his    acting    as   'all  bustle.'  would  have  done  exactly  the  same. 

Macklin 's  Menwirs,  i.  218.   Fielding's  I  know  you  are  only  joking  with  me, 

witty  description  is  well  known.  '  He  but   indeed,  Madam,  though    I   was 

the  best  player ! '  cries  Partridge,  with  never  at  a  play  in  London,  yet  I  have 

a  contemptuous  sneer,  'why,  I  could  seen  acting   before   in   the  country; 

act    as   well    as    he    myself.     I  am  and,  the   King   for   my   money!   he 

sure  if  I  had  seen  a  ghost  I  should  speaks  all  his  words  distinctly,  half 

have  looked  in  the  very  same  manner  as  loud  again  as  the  other.     Anybody 

and  done  just  as  he  did.     And  then,  may  see  he  is  an  Sictor.'— Tom  Jones. 

to  be  sure,  in  that  scene,  as  you  called  See,  too,  The  World,  No.  6. 


CH.  IV.  GAERICK.  593 

answered  in  a  happy  epigram  to  tbe  effect  '  that  it  was  not  heresy 
but  reformation.'  In  two  or  three  characters  Quin  is  said  to 
have  equalled  him.  The  Othello  of  Garrick  was  a  compara- 
tive failure,  which  was  attributed  to  the  dark  colouring  that  con- 
cealed the  wonderful  play  of  his  features,'  and  Barry,  owing  to  his 
rare  personal  advantages,  was,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  superior 
as  Romeo,2  but  on  the  whole  the  supremacy  of  Garrick  was  in  a 
few  months  indisputable,  and  it  continued  unshaken  during  his 
whole  career.  At  the  same  time  his  excellent  character,  his 
brilliant  qualities,  both  as  a  writer  and  a  talker,  and  the  very 
considerable  fortune  that  he  speedily  amassed,  gave  him  a  social 
position  which  had,  probably,  been  attained  by  no  previous  actor. 
The  calling  of  an  actor  had  been  degraded  by  ecclesiastical 
tradition,  as  well  as  by  the  gross  immorality  of  the  theatre  of 
the  Restoration.  For  some  time,  however,  it  had  been  steadily 
rising,^  and  Garrick,  while  elevating  incalculably  the  standard 
of  theatrical  taste,  contributed  also  not  a  little  to  free  his  pro- 
fession from  the  discredit  under  which  it  laboured.  From  the 
time  of  his  first  appearance  upon  the  stage  till  the  close  of  the 
careers  of  Kemble,  of  the  elder  Keau,  and  of  Miss  O'Xeil,  the 
English  stage  was  never  without  some  actors  who  might  rank 
with  the  greatest  on  the  Continent. 

Tlie  old  Puritanical  and  ecclesiastical  hatred  of  the  theatre 
had  abated,  but  it  was  still  occasionally  shown.  In  Scotland  it 
completely  triumphed,  and  the  attempts  of  Allan  Ramsay  and 
a  few  others  to  promote  dramatic  taste  were  almost  completely 
abortive.''  In  England,  Collier  not  only  censured  the  gross 
indecency  and  immorality  of  the  stage  with  just  severity,  but 
he  also  contended  that  it  was  profane  to  employ  any  form  of 
words   which   was   ultimately   derived    from    the    Bible,   even 

'  Nichols'   Life  of    Hogarth,   pp.  the    Bcvolutxoh,   ii.    561.     James    I., 

191,192.  before  he  ascended  the  English  throne, 

*  Mrs.  Montagu's  Letters,  iii.  107.  had  come  into  violent  collision  with 
'  Some  particulars  of  the  increase  the    Puritan    ministers,    because   he 

of  actors'  salaries  will  be  found  in  tried    to    procure    actors    toleration 

Kirkman's  L\fe  of  MacJdin.  i.   435.  in  Scotland.— Collier's  Annah  of  tlu 

Davies'  Life  of  Garrick,  ii.  239-242.  Stage,  i.  pp.  344-6. 

*  Burton's  Hist,  of  Scotland  from 

VOL.  I.  35 


594  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUKY.  en.  it. 

though  it  had  long  since  passed  into  general  ii-age,  to  use  the 
word  'martvr'  in  any  but  its  reUgious  sense,  to  reflect,  how- 
ever sli<rhtlv,  on  anv  priest,  not  only  of  a  Christian  but  even 
of  a  Pa°gan"  creed.  In  1719  Arthiu:  Bedford,  a  chaplain  to 
the  Duke  of  Bedford,  published  a  most  curious  work  '  Against 
the  horrid  Blasphemies  and  Impieties  which  are  still  used  in 
EngHsh  Playhouses  ....  showing  their  plain  tendency  to 
overthrow  all  piety,  and  advance  the  interest  and  honour 
of  the  devil  in  the  world ;  from  almost  7,000  instances  taken 
out  of  the  plays  of  the  present  century.'  He  analysed  with 
extraordinary  minuteness  the  whole  dramatic  literature  of 
the  time,  and  declares  that  it  offended  against  no  less  than 
1,400  texts  of  the  Bible.  He  accuses  the  playwriters,  among 
other  things,  of  restoring  the  Pagan  worship  by  invoking  or 
giving  Divine  titles  to  Cupid,  Jupiter,  Venus,  Pluto,  and 
Diana  ;  of  indirectly  encomraging  witchcraft  or  magic,  '  for  by 
bewitching,  magick,  and  enchanting,  they  only  signify  some- 
thing which  is  most  pleasant  and  desirable ; '  of  encouraging  it 
directly  and  in  the  most  blasphemous  manner  by  such  plays 
as  'Macbeth'  or  the  'Tempest.'"  Like  Collier,  he  finds  it 
very  criminal  to  place  an  immoral  sentiment  in  the  mouth  of 
an  immoral  character,  or  a  Pagan  sentiment  in  the  mouth  of  a 

'  See  the    long  and  curious  cri-  voke  God  once   more  to   plead   His 

ticism  on    Macbeth.     Two   passages  own    cause    by    sending    a    greater 

may  be  cited  as  specimens  of  this  calamity  '  (p.  26).     '  In  another  play 

singular    book.      '  When    God     was  .  .  .  the  high-priest  sings — 

pleased  to  vindicate  His  own  honour,  gj.  the  spirit  in  this  wand, 

and    show    that    He     wotlld    not     be  'WTuch  the  s.ls-er  moon  commands, 

thus    affronted,  by  sending  a  most  |.^  ^^e  powerful  Go<l  of  Xighc, 

dreadful  storm.  .  .  .  yet,  so  great  was  ^^  *^*  ^^^  °^  Amphitrite. 

the  obstinacy  of  the  stage  imder  such  (By  the  mystery  of  Thy  holy  incar- 

signal  judgments,  that  we  are  told  nation   (which    was   to  destroy  the 

the  actors  did  in  a  few  days  after  works   of   the   devil) ;    by   Thy  holy 

entertain  again  their  audience  with  nativity   and   circumcision ;   by  Thy 

the  ridiculous  plays  of  the   Tempeset  baptism,    fasting,   and    tempation; 

and  Macbeth,  and  that  at  the  mention  by  Thine  agony  and  bloody  sweat ; 

of  the  chimneys  being  blown  down  by  Thy  cross   and  passion :    by  Thy 

the  audience  were  pleased  to  clap  at  precious  death   and  burial ;   by  Thy 

an  unusual  length  ...  as    if    they  glorious  resurrection  and  ascension  ; 

would  outbrave  the  judgment,  throw  and  by  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 

Providence  out   of  the  chair,  place  Good    Lord,   deliver    us    from   such 

the    devil    in    His  stead,   and  pro-  impieties  as  these  !  ) '  (p.  16). 


CH.  IT.        DENUNCIATIONS  OF  THE  THEATEE.        595 

Pagan  speaker ;  and  he  was  able  to  discover  blasphemy  even  in 
the  'Cato'  of  Addison.'     About   thirty   years  later,  William 
Law  published  his  well-known  treatise  '  On  the  Absolute  Un- 
lawfulness  of  the   Stage,'   in  which  he  maintained  that  'the 
business  of  players  is  the  most  wicked  and  detestable  profession 
in  the  world ' ;   '  that  the  playhouse,  not  only  when  some  very 
profane  play  is  on  the  stage,  but  in  its  daily,  common  enter- 
tainments, is  as  certainly  the  house  of  the  de^il  as  the  church 
is  the  house  of  God  ; '  and  that  in  going  to  the  theatre  '  you 
are  as  certainly  going  to  the  de^-il's  triumph   as  if  you  were 
going  to  those  old  sports  where  people  committed  murder  and 
oflfered  Christians  to  be  devoured  by  wild  beasts.'     In  1769, 
during  the  Shakespeare  Jubilee,  when  Garrick  was  acting  at 
Stratford-on-Avon,  the  populace  of  that  town  are  said  to  have 
regarded  him  as  a  magician,  and    to  have  attributed  to  the 
vengeance  of  Heaven   the  heavy  rains  that  fell  dm-ing  the  fes- 
tival.^    But,  on  the  whole,  the  religious  prejudice  against  the 
theatre  in  the  first   sixty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
probably  much  less  strong  than  it  afterwards  became,  through 
the  influence  of  the  Methodists  and    the  Evangelicals.     The 
strength  which  it  at  last  acquired  among  large  classes  is  much 
to    be    regretted.      It   has    prevented    an   amusement   which 
has  added  largely  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness,  and  which 
exercises  a  very  considerable  educational  influence,  from  spread- 
ing anywhere  except  in  the  greatest  centres  of  population.     It 
has   multiplied    proportionately   amusements    of    a   far   more 
frivolous  and  purely  unintellectual  character,  and  it  has  with- 
drawn from  the  audiences  in  the  theatre  the  very  classes  whose 
presence  would  be  the  best  guarantee  of  the  habitual  morality 
of  the  entei-tainment. 

'   'Our  blessed  SaWour  .   .   .  hath        This,  this  is  life  iadeed!  Life -H-orth  preserving! 
these  words:    "This  is   life   eterral.       Such  life  as  Juba  never  felt  till  now ! 
that .  they    may    know    thee,    the       And  a  little  after 

only   true    Grod,   and    Jesus    Christ       -.,    •     >    ir   ^    ^  ,      ^.    -. 

X.  ^-L.         ■,     \.  ^  .,      TT     ^^,  My  joy!    My  best  beloved      My  onlv  wish ! ' 

whom  thou  hast  sent.  '     Upon  the  ^jj         -  j      (p.iu.j 

stage,    an    actor,    finding    that    his  «  T^  „•     •  r-j-   _<•  y-.       ■  t    ■■   ««-. 

m^tress  loves  hii,  saith-  327!  '^'  '^  '  "' 


596  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

The  decline  of  one  other  class  of  amusements  must  he 
hriefly  noticed,  for  it  forms  a  curious  page  in  the  history  of 
national  manners.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  Eebellion  the  baiting 
of  animals,  and  especially  of  bulls  and  bears,  was  a  favourite 
pastime  with  every  class.  Henry  YI,II.,  Mary,  Elizabeth,  and 
James  I.  had  all  encouraged  it;  but  under  Elizabeth  the 
growing  taste  for  theatrical  representations  had  begun  gradually 
to  displace  it,  and  to  give  a  new  ply  and  tone  to  the  manners 
of  the  rich.  All  forms  of  amusement  naturally  fell  into  de- 
suetude during  the  Civil  War.  All  of  them  were  suppressed 
durino-  the  Commonwealth,  and  it  was  probably  some  Puritan 
divines  who  first  maintained  in  England  the  doctrine  that  it 
was  criminal  to  make  the  combative  or  ferocious  instincts  of 
animals  subservient  to  our  pleasures.'  Motives  of  humanity 
had,  however,  in  general  little  or  nothing  to  say  to  the  Puri- 
tanical proscription  of  these  amusements,  which,  as  Macaulay 
truly  said,  were  condemned  not  because  they  gave  pain  to  the 
animal,  but  because  they  gave  pleasure  to  the  spectators.^ 
When,  however,  they  revived  at  the  Eestoration,  the  change  of 
tastes  that  had  taken  place  became  apparent.  The  bear-garden 
was  as  popular  as  ever  with  the  poor,  but  the  upper  classes  had 
begun  to  desert  it.  In  1675  we  find  a  Court  exhibition  before 
the  Spanish  Ambassador,  and  in  1681  the  Ambassador  of  Mo- 
rocco and  the  Duke  of  Albemarle  witnessed  a  similar  spectacle  ; 
but  such  entertainments  were  now  becoming  rare.  Pepys  and 
Evelyn  speak  of  them  as  '  rude  and  nasty  pleasures,'  '  butcherly 
sports,  or  rather  barbarous  cruelties ' ;  ^  and,  although  even  in 
the  last  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  we  find  a  writer  on 
this  subject  asserting  that  bullbaiting  '  is  a  sport  the  English 
much  delight  in,  and  not  only  the  baser  sort  but  the  greatest 

'  See   a  very   curious    collection  Harleian  3Iiscellany ,  vi.  125-127. 
of    Puritan  denunciations   of    cock-  2  ggg   Macaulay's   account,   Hist. 

fighting,   on  the    ground  that   'the  ch.  2,  and   the   famous  bear-baiting 

antipathy  and  cruelty  that  one  beast  scene  in  Hudibras. 
showeth  to   another  is  the   fruit  of  ^  Pepys'    JDiai-y,    Aug.    14,    1666. 

our  rebellion  against   God,'   in   the  Evelyn's  Diai-y,  June  16,  1670. 


CH.  IV.  HUMANITY  TO  ANIMALS.  597 

lords  and  ladies,'  ^  it  is  clear  that  the  stream  of  fashion  had 
decidedly  turned.  In  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  essay-writers  who  exercised  so  great  an  influence  on  the 
minor  morals  of  society,  steadily  discountenanced  these  amuse- 
ments ;  and  we  may  at  this  period  find  several  sliglit,  but 
clear  traces  of  a  warmer  regard  for  the  sufferings  of  the  lower 
animals.  Steele  speaks  of  the  bear-garden  as  a  place  '  where 
reason  and  good  manners  had  no  right  to  enter,'  and  both 
he  and  Pope  wrote  in  the  strongest  terms  against  cruelty  to 
animals,  and  especially  against  the  English  passion  for  brutal 
amusements.^ 

The  practice  of  vivisection,  which  is  at  all  times  liable  to 
grave  abuse,  and  which,  before  the  introduction  of  anaesthetics, 
was  often  inexpressibly  horrible,  appears  to  have  been  very  com- 
mon.' Bacon  had  recommended  inquirers  to  turn  their  atten- 
tion in  this  direction;  and  the  great  discovery,  partly  through 
its  means,  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  had  brought  it  into  fashion ;  but  Pope 
fcipoke  of  it  with  extreme  detestation,*  and  Johnson,  several 
years  later,  dwelt  with  just  indignation  upon  the  useless  bar- 
barities of  which   some    medical  students  were  guilty.^     The 

'  John    Houghton's    '  Collections  tribe   than   dogs.     Incredible  is  the 

for  the  Improvement  of  Agriculture  '  number  of  these  animals  which  have 

(1694),  quoted  in  Malcolm's  Anecdotes  been  sacrificed  at  the  shrines  of  physic 

of  London,  iii.  57.     As  late  as  1749,  and  surgery.     Lectures  of   anatomy 

GYietv!oodi,\n\\\s  History  of  the  Stage,  subsist   by  their  destruction.     Ward 

says,    '  Bull-baiting,    boxing,    bear-  (saj's  Pope)  tried  his  drops  on  puppies 

gardens,  and  prize  fighting  will  draw  and   the   poor ;    and   in  general,  all 

to  them  all   ranks   of   people   from  new  medicines  and  experiments  of  a 

the  peer  to  the  pedlar  '  (p.  60).  Tjiey  doubtful  nature  are  sure  to  be  made 

had,    however,   at    this    time    quite  in  the  first  place   on   the  bodies  of 

passed   out   of   the   category   of   re-  those    unfortunate   animals.'     Swift, 

cognised  fashionable  amusements.  in  one  of  his  Brajjier's  Lette7-s,  com- 

*  Spectator,  No.  141.     Tatler,  No.  pares  the  threats  and  complaints  of 

134.     Guardian,  No.   61    (by   Pope).  Wood  'to   the   last   howls   of   a  dog 

See,  too,  the  World,  No.  190.  dissected   alive,  as   I   hope    he  hath 

'  See,  on  the  vivisection  of  dogs,  sufficiently  been.' — Letter. 4. 
Coventry's Pompey  the  Little,Tpaxt  iii.  ■*  Spence's  Anecdotes,  sec.  viii. 

ch.  xi.  The  author  adds :  '  A  dog  might  '  '  Among    the  inferior  professors 

have  been  the  emblematic  animal  of  of  medical    knowledge   is   a  race  of 

iEsculapius  or  Apollo  with  as  much  wretches,  whose  lives  are  only  varied 

propriety  as  he  was  of  Mercury  ;  for  by   varieties   of   cruelty ;   whose    fa- 

rio  creatures,  I  believe,  have  been  of  vourite  amusement  is  to  riail  dogs  to 

more  eminent  service  to  the  healing  tables  and  open  them  alive ;  to  try 


598  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

poems  of  Gay  are  animated  by  a  remarkable  feeling  of  com- 
passion for  animals,'  and  the  Duke  of  Montague  is  said  to  have 
established  a  home  for  them,  and  to  have  exerted  his  influence 
as  a  great  landlord  warmly  in  their  favour.  ^ 

At  the  same  time  the  change  was  only  in  a  small  section  of  the 
community.  Bear-baiting,  when  it  ceased  to  be  an  amusement 
of  the  rich,  speedily  declined  because  of  the  scarcity  of  the 
animals,  but  bull-baiting  through  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  a  popular  English  amusement.  In  Queen  Anne's 
time  it  was  performed  in  London  at  Hockley  Hole,  regularly 
twice  a  week,^  and  there  was  no  provincial  to\m.  to  which  it 
did  not  extend.  It  was  regarded  on  the  Continent  as  peculiarly 
English.  The  tenacity  of  the  English  bull-dog,  which  would  some- 
times suffer  itself  to  be  cut  to  pieces  rather  than  relax  its  hold, 
was  a  favourite  subject  of  national  boasting,  while  French 
writers  pointed  to  the  marked  difference  in  this  respect  between 
the  French  and  English  taste  as  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  higher 
civilisation  of  their  own  nation.^  Among  those  who  at  a  late 
period  patronised  or  defended  bull-baiting  were  Windham  and 
Parr;  and  even  Canning  and  Peel  opposed  the  measure  for 
its  abolition  by  law.     At  Stamford  and  at  Tutbury  a  maddened 

how  long  life  may  be  continued  in  lasting  agonies  are  produced  by  poison 

various  degrees  of  mutilation  or  with  forced  into  the  mouth  or  injected  into 

the  excision  or  laceration  of  the  vital  the  veins.' — The  Idler  (No.  17),  1758. 

parts ;  to  examine  whether   burning  '  See  especially  his  poem  on  field 

irons  are  felt  more   acutely  by  the  »ports. 

bone  or  tendon  and  whether  the  more  -  Spence's  Ayiecdotes,  Supplement. 

'  Experienced  men,  inured  to  city  ways, 
Need  not  the  calendar  to  count  their  days. 
When  through  the  town,  with  slow  and  solemn  air, 
Led  by  the  nostril,  walks  the  muzzled  bear, 
Behind  him  moves,  majestically  dull. 
The  pride  of  Hockley  Hole,  the  surly  bull. 
Learn  hence  the  periods  of  the  week  to  name, 
Monday  and  Thursday  are  the  days  of  game. 

Gay's  Triina. 
Tatler,  No.  134.  Griiardian,  No.  Morality  (1st  ed.),  p.  7.  Hogarth 
61.  'The  bear-garden,'  says  Lord  introduced  into  his  picture  of  a  cock- 
Kames,  'which  is  one  of  the  chief  fight,  a  Frenchman  turning  away 
entertainments  of  the  English,  is  with  an  expression  of  unqualified 
held  in  abhorrence  by  the  French  disgust. 
and  other  polite  nations.' — Essays  on 


CH.  IV.  AMUSEMENTS  WITH  ANIMALS.  599 

biill  was,  from  a  very  early  period,  annually  hunted  through  the 
streets.  Among  the  entertainments  advertised  in  London  in 
1729  and  1730,  we  find  'a  mad  bull  to  be  dressed  up  with  fire- 
works and  turned  loose  in  the  game  place,  a  dog  to  be  dressed 
up  with  fireworks  over  him,  a  bear  to  be  let  loose  at  the  same 
time,  and  a  cat  to  be  tied  to  the  bull's  tail,  a  mad  bull  dressed 
up  with  fireworks  to  be  baited.'  *  Such  amusements  were  min- 
gled with  prize-fighting,  boxing  matches  between  v.'omen,  or 
combats  with  quart er-stafis  or  broadswords.  Ducking  ponds,  in. 
which  ducks  were  hunted  by  dogs,  were  favourite  popular 
resorts  around  Loudon,  especially  those  in  St.  George's  Fields, 
the  present  site  of  Bethlehem  Hospital.  Sometimes  the  amuse- 
ment was  varied,  and  an  owl  was  tied  to  the  back  of  the 
duck,  which  dived  in  terror  till  one  or  both  birds  were 
killed.  Tlie  very  barbarous  amusement  of  cock-throwing, 
which  was  at  least  as  old  as  Chaucer,  and  in  which  Sir  T.  More 
when  a  young  man  had  been  especially  expert,  is  said  to  have 
been  peculiarly  English.^  It  consisted  of  tying  a  cock  to  a 
stake  as  a  mark  for  sticks,  which  were  thrown  at  it  from  a 
distance  till  it  was  killed ;  and  it  was  ascribed  to  the  English 
antipathy  to  the  French,  who  were  symbolised  by  that  bird.^ 
The  old  Greek  game  of  cock-fighting  was  also  extremely  popular 
in  England.  It  was  a  favourite  game  of  schoolboys,  who,  from 
the  time  of  Henry  II.  till  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, were  accustomed  almost  universally  to  practise  it  on  Shrove 
Tuesday ;  and  in  many  schools  in  Scotland  the  runaway  cocks 
were  claimed  by  the  masters  as  their  perquisites.  A  curious 
accoimt  is  preserved  of  the  parish  of  Applecross  in  Ross-shire, 
written  about  1790,  in  which  among  the  different  sources  of 

«  Andrews'  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  Spoi-ts  and  Pastimes  of  tJie  Em/lish 

60.     ^txMXVs  Sports  and  Pastimes,  T^.  Peojde.     GoWigt's  Hist,  of  the  Drama. 

259.  Andrews'  Eighteenth  Ceutnry.  Chain- 

*  There  is,  however,  a  picture  bers's  Book  of  Dags,  Hone's  Every- 
representing  a  Dutch  fair,  in  the  day  Book,  Milson's  Travels  in  Eng- 
gallery  at  the  Ha.ijue,  where  a  goose  land,  Muralt's  Letters  on  England. 
is  represented  undergoing  a  similar  One  famous  bear,  called  Sacherson,  is 
fate.  immortalised  by  Shakespeare,  Merry 

*  See,  on     these    sports,   Ktrutt's  Wives  of  Windso?;  act  ],   scene  1. 


600  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  iv. 

the  schoolmaster's  income  we  find  '  cock-fight  dues,  which  are 
equal  to  one  quarter's  payment  for  each  scholar.'  '  Henry  VIII. 
built  a  cock-pit  at  Whitehall ;  and  James  1.  was  accustomed  to 
divert  himself  with  cock-fighting-  twice  a  week.  In  the  eigh- 
teenth century  it  appears  to  have  rather  increased  than 
diminished,  and  being  the  occasion  of  great  gambling  it 
retained  its  place  among  very  fashionable  amusements;  nor 
does  it  appear  to  have  been  generally  regarded  as  more  inhuman 
.than  hunting,  coursing,  or  shooting.  It  was  introduced  into 
Scotland  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  or  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century  by  a  fencing  master  named  Machrie,  who 
seems  to  have  been  looked  upon  as  a  benefactor  to  Scotland  for 
having  started  a  new,  cheap,  and  innocent  amusement.  He  wrote, 
in  1705,  '  An  Essay  on  the  Innocent  and  Eoyal  Eecreation  and 
Art  of  Cocking,'  in  which  he  expressed  his  hope  that '  in  cock- 
war  village  may  be  engaged  against  village,  city  against  city, 
kingdom  against  kingdom,  nay,  the  father  against  the  son,  until 
all  the  wars  of  Europe,  wherein  so  much  innocent  Christian 
blood  is  spilt,  be  turned  into  the  innocent  pastime  of  cocking.' ^ 
The  fiercest  and  most  powerful  cocks  were  frequently  brought 
over  from  Germany  ;  and  the  Welsh  main,  which  was  the  most 
sanguinary  form  of  the  amusement,  appears  to  have  been 
exclusively  English,  and  of  modern  origin.  In  this  game  as 
many  as  sixteen  cocks  were  sometimes  matched  against  each 
other  at  each  side,  and  they  fought  till  all  on  one  side  were 
killed.  The  victors  were  then  divided  and  fought,  and  the 
process  was  repeated  till  but  a  single  cock  remained.  County 
engaged  county  in  cocking  matches,  and  the  church  bells  are 
said  to  have  been  sometimes  rung  in  honour  of  the  victor  in  tlie 
Welsh  main.^ 

'  Chambers's  Domeistic  Annals  of  logia,  vol.  iii. ;    in  Beckmann's  Hii^. 

Scotland,  iii.  269.  of  Inventions,  vol.  ii. ;  and  in  Strutfs 

^  Ibid.  267-8.  Sjwrts  and  Pastimes.    See,  too,  Mac- 

^  Roberts's    Social    Hist,    of    the  ky's    Taiir  throiigh  England,  vol.  i.  p. 

SoxithernC(nmties,Tp. '^21.  The  history  137;    Heath's  account  of   the  Scilly 

of   cock-fighting  and  cock-throwing  Islands,  Pinkerton's   Voyages,  ii.  756. 

has  been  fully  examined   in  a  dis-  Wesley  tells  a  story  of  a  gentleman 

sertation  by  Pegge,  in  the  ArchcBo-  whom  he  reproved  for  swearing,  and 


CH.  IV.  WATERING-PLACES.— SEA-BATHING.  601 

The  passion  for  inland  watering-places  was  at  its  height. 
Bath,  under  the  long  rule  of  Beau  Nash,  fully  maintained  its 
old  ascendency,  and  is  said  to  have  been  annually  visited  by 
more  than  8,000  families.  Anstey,  in  one  of  the  most  bril- 
liant satirical  poems  of  the  eighteenth  century,  painted,  with 
inimitable  skill,  its  follies  and  its  tastes ;  and  the  arbitrary  but 
not  unskilful  sway  and  self-important  manners,  of  its  great 
master  of  the  ceremonies,  were  widely  celebrated  in  verse  and 
prose.  Among  the  commands  which  he  issued  there  is  one 
which  is  well  worthy  of  a  passing  notice.  Between  1720  and 
1730  it  was  observed  that  young  men  of  fashion  in  London  had 
begun  in  their  morning  walks  to  lay  aside  their  swords,  which 
were  hitherto  looked  upon  as  the  indispensable  signs  of  a 
gentleman,  and  to  carry  walking-sticks  instead.  Beau  Nash 
made  a  great  step  in  the  same  direction  by  absolutely  pro- 
hibiting swords  within  his  dominions,  and  this  was,  perhaps,  the 
beginning  of  a  change  of  fashion  which  appears  to  have  been 
general  about  1780,  and  which  has  a  real  historical  importance 
as  reflecting  and  sustaining  the  pacific  habits  that  were  growing 
in  society.*  In  addition  to  Bath,  Tunbridge  Wells,  Epsom, 
Buxton,  and  the  more  modest  Islington  retained  their  popu- 
larity, and  a  new  rival  was  rising  into  note.  The  mineral 
springs  of  Cheltenham  were  discovered  about  1730,  and  in  1738 
a  regular  Spa  was  built.  But  soon  after  the  middle  of  the 
century  a  great  and  sudden  change  took  place.  Up  to  this 
time  there  is  scarcely  a  record  of  sea-bathing  in  England,  but 
in  1750  Dr.  Eichard  Russell  published  in  Latin  his  treatise 
'On  glandular  consumption,  and  the  use  of  sea-water  in  diseases 
of  the  glands.'     It  was  translated  in  1753.     The  new  remedy 

who  was  at  last  so  mollified  that  he  Doran's  arfcle  on  Beau  Nash,  in  the 

said  'he  would   come   ta  hear  him,  Gentleman's    Magazine.     Towusend's 

only  he  was   afraid   he   should   say  Hist,  of  the  Hoxtsc  of  Commons,  ii.  p. 

something  a^rainst  tiprhting  of  cocks.'  412-416.     The   evils    resulting  from 

— Wesley's  ./««;•««/,  March  174:{.  the  prevailing    fashion    of    wearing 

'  See  a  curious  passage  from  'The  swords,  had  been  noticed  in  the  be- 

Universal  Spectator,'  of  1730,  quoted  ginning  of  the  century  in  a  treatise 

in  the  Pictarial  Hist,  of  England,  iv.  on    the   subject  by  a  writer  named 

805.     Beau  Nash's  Life,  by   Doran.  Povey. 


602  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  tv. 

acquired  an  extraordinary  popularity,  and  it  produced  a  great, 
permanent,  and  on  the  whole  very  beneficial  change  m  the 
national  tastes.  In  a  few  years  obscure  fishing-villages  along 
the  coast  began  to  assume  the  dimensions  of  stately  watering- 
places,  and  before  the  century  had  closed  Cowper  described,  in 
indignant  lines,  the  common  enthusiasm  with  which  all  ages 
iind  dasses  rushed  for  health  or  pleasure  to  the  sea.' 

There  was  not,  I  think,  any  other  change  in  the  history  of 
manners  during  the  first  sixty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  so 
considerable  as  to  call  for  extended  notice  in  a  work  like  the 
present.  The  refinements  of  civilisation  advanced  by  slow  and 
almost  insensible  degrees  into  country  life  as  the  improvements 
of  roads  increased  the  facilities  of  locomotion,  and  as  the  growth 
of  provincial  towns  and  of  a  provincial  press  multiplied  the 
centres  of  intellectual  and  political  activity.  In  these  respects, 
however,  the  latter  half  of  the  century  was  a  far  more  memor- 
able period  than  the  former  half ;  and  the  history  of  roads,  which 
I  have  not  yet  noticed,  will  be  more  conveniently  considered  in 
a  future  chapter.  The  manners  and  tastes  of  the  country 
gentry  were  often  to  the  last  degree  coarse  and  illiterate,  but 
the  large  amount  of  public  business  that  in  England  has  always 
been  thrown  upon  the  class,  maintained  among  them  no  con- 
temptible level  of  practical  intelligence ;  and  some  circulation 
of  intellectual  life  was  secured  by  the  cathedral  towns,  the 
inland  watering-places,  and  the  periodical  migrations  of  the 
richer  members  to  London  or  Bath.  The  yeomanry  class,  also, 
as  long  as  they  existed  in  considerable  numbers,  maintained  a 
spirit  of  independence  in  country  life  which  extended  even  to 
the  meanest  ploughman,  and  had  some  influence  both  in  stimu- 

Your  prudent  grandmammas,  ye  modern  belles, 

Content  with  Bristol,  Bath,  and  Tunbridge  Wells, 

When  health  required  it,  would  consent  to  roam, 

Else  more  attached  to  pleasures  found  at  Lome  ; 

But  now  alike,  gay  widow,  virgin,  wife, 

Ingenious  to  diversify  dull  life. 

In  coaches,  chaises,  caravans,  and  hoys, 

Fly  to  the  coast  for  daily,  nightly  joys, 

And  all,  impatient  of  dry  land,  agree 

With  one  consent  to  rush  into  the  sea.  Retirement. 


CH.  IV.  THE  COUNTRY  GENTRY.  603 

lating  the  faculties,  and  restraining  the  despotism  of  the  country 
magistrates."     Whatever  may  have  been   the    defects  of   the 
English  country  gentry,  agriculture  under  their  direction  had 
certainly  attained  a  much  higher  perfection  than  in  France,' 
and  though  narrow-minded  and  intensely  prejudiced,  they  formed 
an  upright,  energetic,  and  patriotic  element  in  Eoglish  public 
life.     The  well-known  pictures  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  and  of 
Squire  Western  exhibit  in  strong  lights  their  merits  and  their 
faults,  and  the  contrast  between  rural  and  metropolitan  manners 
was  long  one  of  the  favourite  subjects  of  the  essayists.     That 
contrast,  however,  was  rapidly  diminishing.     In  the  first  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  habit  of  making  annual  visits  to 
London  or  to  a  watering-place  very  greatly  increased,  and  it 
contributed  at   once  to  soften  the  manners  of  the  richer  and 
to  accelerate  the  disappearance  of  the  poorer  members  of  the 
class,     A    scale    and   rivalry    of    luxury   passed    into    country 
life   which    made    the   position    of  the  small   landlord    com- 
pletely untenable.     At  the  beginning  of  the  century  tliere  still 
existed  in  England  numerous  landowners  with  estates  of  200^ 
or  300^.  a  year.     The  descendants  in  many  cases  of  the  ancient 
yeomen,  they  ranked  socially  with  the  gentry.     They  possessed 
to  the  full  extent  the  pride  and  prejudices,  and  discharged  very 
efficiently  many  of  the  duties  of  the  class  ;  but  they  lived  exclu- 
sively in  the  country,  their  whole  lives  were  occupied  with 
country  business  or  country  sports,  their  travels  rarely  or  never 
extended  beyond  the  nearest  county  town,  aud   in   tastes,  in 
knowledge,  and  in  language  they  scarcely  differed  from  the 
tenant-farmer.     From  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century 
this  class  began  rapidly  to  diminish,  and  before  the  close  of  the 
century  it  was  almost  extinct.'     Though  still  vehement  Tories, 

'  Defoe  has  noticed  this  indepen-  Young's  Tour  in  France. 
dence  in  lines  more  remarkable  for  ^  This  change  is  well  noticed  in 

their  meaning  than  for  their  form.  a  very  able  book  published  in  1772. 

The  meanest  English  plo^-man  studies  law,  '^^'^^  author  says  :  '  An  income  of  200^. 

And  keeps  thereby  the  magistrates  in  awe.  or   300^.  a  year   in   the   last   a^e   was 

Will  boldly  tell  them  what  they  ought  to  do,  reckoned  a  decent  hereditarv°  natri- 

And  sometimes  punish  their  omissions  too.  mrvmr    r^r-   r,    ^^„^    „  *   ii-  i_         K    p 

True-born  Englishman.  ™°"^'   °^  ^   g°"'^    establishment    for 

^iie;  but  now.  .  all  country  gentlemen 
See  the  comparison  in  Arthur      give  in  to  so  many  local  exi^enses  and 


604  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  en.  it. 

full  of  zeal  for  the  Church  and  of  hatred  of  Dissenters  and 
foreigners,  the  Jacobitism  of  the  country  gentry  had  subsided 
during  the  reign  of  George  II.,  and  they  gave  the  Pretender  no 
assistance  in  1745.  Their  chief  vice  was  hard-drinking.^  Their 
favourite  occupations  were  field  sports.  These  amusements, 
though  they  somewhat  changed  their  character,  do  not  appear 
to  have  at  all  diminished  during  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  it  was  in  this  period  that  Gay,  and  especially  Somer- 
ville,  published  the  most  considerable  sporting  poems  in  the 
language.  Hawking,  which  had  been  extremely  popular  in  the 
beo"inning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  which  was  a  favourite 
sport  of  Charles  II.,  almost  disappeared  in  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Stag-hunting  declined  with  the  spread 
of  agriculture,  but  hare-hunting  held  its  ground,  and  fox-hunt- 
ing greatly  increased.  Cricket,  which  would  occupy  a  distin- 
guished place  in  any  modern  picture  of  English  man"ners,  had 
apparently  but  just  arisen.  The  earliest  notice  of  it,  discovered 
by  an  antiquary  who  has  devoted  much  research  to  the  history 
of  amusements,  is  in  one  of  D'Urfey's  songs,  written  in  the 
beginning  of  the  century.^  It  was  mentioned  as  one  of  the 
amusements  of  Londoners  by  Strype  in  his  edition  of  Stow's 
'  Survey '  published  in  1720,  and  towards  the  close  of  the  century 
it  greatly  increased. 

There  had  been  loud  complaints  ever  since  the  Kevolution, 

reckon  themselves  so  much  on  a  par,  absurd,  how  uncouth  are  the  generality 

tliat  a  small   estate   is  but  another  of  people  in  this  country,  you  would 

word  for  starving ;  of  course,  few  are  look  upon  this  as  no  small  piece  of 

to  be  found,  but  they  are  bought  up  good    fortune.     For  the    most    part 

by  greater  neighbours  or  become  mere  they  are  drunken  and  vicious,  and 

iarmeTs.'^Zettcrs  on  England,  p.  229.  worse  than  hj^ocrites— profligates.   I 

In  Grose's  Olw,  published  in  1792,  am  very  happy  that  drinking  is  not 
there  is  a  very  graphic  description  of  ■    within  our  walls.     We  have  not  had 

the  mode  of  living  of  '  the  little  in-  one   person   disordered    with   liquor 

dependent  country  gentleman  of  300Z.  since  we  came  down,  though  most  of 

per  annum,'  'a  character,'  the  author  the  poor  ladies  in  the  neighbourhood 

says,  '  now  worn  out  and  gone.'  have  had  more  hogs  in  their  drawing- 

'  Mrs.  Montagu,    in  one  of    her  room  than  ever  they  had    in   their 

letters    from  Yorkshire  to  a  friend  hog  sty.'— Doran's  Life  of  Mrs.  Mo?i- 

in  London,   writes  :    '  We  have   not  tagu,  p.  36. 

been     troubled    with    any    visitors  ^  Htrutt's  Spoi'ts  and  Pastimes,  p. 

since     Mr.     Montagu    went    away;  106. 
and  could  you  see  how  awkward,  how  ' 


CH.  IV.  CONDITION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.  605 

both  in  the  country  and  in  the  towns,  of  the  rapid  rise  of  the 
poor-rates,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  due,  much  less  to  any  growth 
of  real  poverty  than  to  improvident  administration  and  to  the 
dissipated  habits  that  were  generated  by  the  poor-laws.  Although 
the  controversy  on  the  subject  of  these  laws  did  not  come  to  a 
climax  till  long  after  the  period  Ave  are  now  considering,  the  great 
moral  and  economical  evils  resulting  from  them  were  clearly 
seen  by  the  most  acute  thinkers.  Among  others,  Locke,  in  a  report 
which  he  drew  up  in  1697,  anticipating  something  of  the  later 
reasoning  of  Malthus,  pointed  out  forcibly  the  danger  to  the 
country  from  the  great  increase  of  able-bodied  pauperism,  and 
attributed  it  mainly,  if  not  exclusively,  to  '  the  relaxation  of 
discipline  and  the  corruption  of  manners.'     The  annual  rates 
in  the  last  thirty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  variously 
estimated  at  from  600,000^.  to  840,000^.     They  rose  before  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Anne  to  at  least  a  million.     They  again 
sank  for  a  time  after  an  Act,  which  was  carried  in  1723,  for 
founding  workhouses  and  imposing  a  more  severe  discipline  on 
paupers,  but  they  soon  regained  their  ascending  movement  and 
continued  steadily  to  increase  during  the  remainder  of  the  cen- 
tury.    Popular  education  and  the  rapid  growth  of  manufactur- 
ing wages  had  not  yet  produced  that  high  type  of  capacity  and 
knowledge   which   is  now  found  among  the  skilled  artisans  of 
the  great  towns,  but  the  broad  lines  of  the  English  industrial 
character  were  clearly  discernible.     Probably  no  workman  in 
Europe  could  equal  the  Englishman  in  physical  strength,  in 
sustained  power  and  energy  of  work,  and  few,  if  any,  could  surpass 
him  in  thoroughness  and  fidelity  in  the  performance  of  his  task 
and  in  general  rectitude  and  honesty  of  character.     On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  far  inferior  to  most  Continental  workmen  in  those 
branches  of  labour  which  depended  on  taste  and  on  delicacy  of 
touch,  and  most  industries  of  this  kind  passed  into  the  hands 
of  refugees.     His  requirements  were  much  greater  than  those 
of  the  Continental  workman.     In  habits  of  providence  and  of 
economy  he  ranked  extremely  low  in  the  industrial  scale  ;  his 
relaxations  usually   took  the  form  of  drimkenness  or    brutal 


606  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY. 

sports,  and  lie  was  rather  peculiarly  addicted  to  riot  and  violence. 
An  attempt  to  estimate  with  any  precision  the  position  of  the 
different  classes  engaged  in  agriculture  or  manufacturing  indus- 
try is  very  difficult,  not  only  on  account  of  the  paucity  of 
evidence  we  possess,  but  also  on  account  of  the  many  different 
and  fluctuating  elements   that  have   to  be   considered.      The 
prosperity  of  a  class  is  a  relative  term,  and  we  must  judge  it 
not  only  by  comparing  the  condition  of  the  same  class  in  different 
countries  and  in  different  times,  but  also  by  comparing  it  with 
that  of  the  other  sections  of  society.     The  value  of  money  has 
greatly  changed,'  but  the  change  has  not  been  uniform  ;  it  has 
been  counteracted  by  other  influences ;  it  applies  much  more 
to  some  articles  of  consumption  than  to  others,  and  therefore 
affects  very  unequally  the  different  classes  in  the  community. 
Thus  the  price  of  wheat  in  the  seventy  years  that  followed  the 
Kevolution  was  not  very  materially  different  from  what  it  now 
is,  and  during  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  it,  on  the 
whole,  slightly  declined.     At    the   time  of  the  Kevolution  it 
was  a  little  under  41s.  a  quarter.     During  the  ten  years  ending 
in  1705   it  was  about  43s.,  in  the  ten  ending  in   1715  it  was 
about  44s.;    in  the   twenty  ending  in    1735   about  35s.;    in 
the  ten  ending  in  1745  about  32s. ;  and  in  the  ten  ending  in 
1755  about  33s.     The  price  of  meat,  on  the  other  hand,  was  far 
less  than  at  present.     The  average  price  of  mutton  throughout 
England  from   1706  to  1730  is  stated  to  have  been  2^d.  a 
pound.     From  1730  to  1760  it  had  risen  to  Sd.  a  pound.     The 
price  of  beef,  from  1740  to  1760,  is  said  to  have  been  2^d.  a 
pound.    Pork,  veal,  and  lamb,  as  well  as  beer,  were  proportion- 

'  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  Queen  Anne   had  hut   700,000Z.   per 

complaints  of  the  increasing  price  of  annum,  but  neither  had  any  family 

living  in  the  first  half  of  the  eigh-  to   provide   for,   and    both   lived   in 

teenthcentury,  were,  among  the  upper  times  when  that  income  would  have 

classes,  little'  less  loud  than  those  we  supported  a  greater  expense  than  a 

hear  in  the  present  day.     Thus  the  million  would  now  do ;  for  the  truth 

author  of    Faction  Detected   by   the  of  which  I  appeal  to  the  experience 

Evidence  of  Facts,  which   was  pub-  of  every  private  family,  and  to  the 

lished  in  1743,  speaking  of  the  royal  known  advance  of  price  in  all  com- 

incomeat  different  periods  of  English  modifies    and    articles    of     expense 

history,    says,   '  King    William    and  whatsoever '  (p.  137). 


CH.  IV.  KING'S  ESTIMATE.  607 

ately  cheap.'  We  must  remember,  too,  in  estimating  the  con- 
dition of  British  labourers,  that  besides  their  wages  they  had 
the  advantage  of  an  immense  extent  of  common  land.  Nearly 
every  village  had  still  around  it  a  large  space  of  unenclosed  and 
uncultivated  ground  on  which  the  cows,  sheep,  and  geese  of 
the  poor  found  an  ample  pasture. 

The  different  parts  of  England  differed  widely  in  prosperity, 
the  counties  surrounding  London,  and  generally  the  southern 
half  of  the  island,  being  by  far  the  most  flourishing,  while  the 
northern  parts,  and  especially  the  counties  bordering  on  Scot- 
land, were  the  most  poor.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the 
former,  at  least,  the  condition  of  the  English  labourer  was  much 
more  prosperous  than  that  which  was  general  in  the  same  class  on 
the  Continent.  Gregory  King,  in  his  very  valuable  estimate  of 
'  the  state  and  condition  of  England  '  in  1 696,  has  calculated  that, 
out  of  a  population  of  about  5,500,000,  about  2,700,000  ate  meat 
daily,  and  that,  of  the  remaining  2,800,000, 1,540,000  ate  meat 
at  least  twice  a  week,  while  240,000  were  either  sick  persons  or 
infants  under  thirteen  montlis  old.  There  remained  1,020,000 
persons  '  who  receive  alms,  and  consequently  eat  not  flesh 
above  once  a  week.'  It  would  appear  from  this  estimate  that 
the  whole  population  eat  meat  at  least  once  a  week  and  all 
healthy  adults,  who  were  not  paupers,  more  than  once  ;  ^  while  the 

'  These  and  many  other  statistics  the  parish  pay  was  in  fact  three  times 

on    the     subject,    are     collected    in  as  much  as  a  common  labourer,  having 

Knight's  Pietirrial  Hist,  of  England,  to  maintain  a  wife  and  three  children, 

iv.  p.  700.     Eden's  Hist,  of  the  117>?7.'-  can  afEord  to  expend  upon  himself, 

i«<7  r/<i.wfc'.«,  iii. append,  i. "  Thornton's  and    that    'persons    once    receiving 

Over-Population,  p.  202.  parish   pay    presently    become   idle, 

2  The    immense     proportion  .the  alleging  that  the  parish  is  bound  to 

paupers  bore  to  the  rest  of  the  popu-  maintain  them,  and  that  in  case  they 

lation   will   strike    the    reader,   but  should  work,  it  would  only  favour  a 

Macaulay,  in  his  famous  third  chapter,  parisli  from  whom,  they  say,  they  shall 

ureatly  exaggerated  its  significance  have  no  thanks.'     He  assures  us  that 

as   indicating    the    amount    of    real  'such  as  are  maintained  by  the  parish 

misery  in  the  community:    The  relief  pay,  seldom  drink  any  other  than  the 

was  out-door  relief ;  there  appears  to  strongest   ale-house   beer,  which,   at 

liave  been  no  general  feeling  of  shame  tlie  rate  they  buy  it,  costs  .50.'!.  or  31.  a 

about  accepting  it,  and  it  was  dis-  hogshead;  that  they  seldom  eat  any 

tributed    with   a   most    mischievous  bread  save  what  is  made  of  the  finest 

profusion.     Richard    Dunning,    in   a  wheat  tiour.'     At  this  time  there  is 

tract  published  in  1698,  asserts  that  reason  to  believe  that  wheat  bread 


608  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  cu.  it. 

oicantic  consumption  of  beer,  to  which  I  have  ah-eady  referred, 
makes  it  almost  certain  that  this  was  the  common  beverage  of 
•ill  classes.  The  same  writer  makes  a  curious  attempt  to  esti- 
mate the  average  incomes  of  families  in  the  different  classes  of 
society  m  1688.  That  of  the  temporal  lords  he  places  at  2,800L 
That  of  baronets,  at  880^. ;  that  of  esquires  and  of  other  gentle- 
men respectively  at  450L  and  280^. ;  that  of  shopkeepers  and 
tradesmen  at  451. ;  that  of  artisans  and  handicrafts  at  40^.  ;  that 
of  labouring  people  and  out-servants  at  151. ;  that  of  common 
soldiers  at  Ul. ;  that  of  cottagers  and  paupers  at  61.  10s.  The 
average  annual  incomes  of  all  classes  he  reckoned  at  32L  a 
family,  or  71.  18s.  a  head.  In  France  he  calculated  that  the 
average  annual  income  was  61.  a  head,  and  in  Holland  8l.  Is.U. 
From  a  careful  comparison  of  the  food  of  the  different  nations 
he  calculated  that  the  English  annually  spent  on  food,  on  an 
average,  3L  16s.  5d.  a  head;  the  Frencli,  2l.  16s.  2d.;  the 
Dutch,  21.  16s.  5d.' 

Such  estimates  can,  of  course,  only  be  accepted  with  much 
reservation  ;  but  they  are  the  judgments  of  a  very  acute  con- 
temporary observer,  and  they  are,  no  doubt,  sufficiently  accu- 
rate to  enable  us  to  form  a  fair  general  conception  of  the 
relative  proportions.  In  1704  an  abortive  attempt  whicli  was 
made  to  extend  the  system  of  poor-law  relief  produced  the 
'  Givino-  Alms  no  Charity,'  one  of  the  most  admirable  of  the 
many  excellent  tracts  of  Defoe.  No  man  then  living  was  a 
shrewder  or  more  practical  observer,  and  he  has  collected  many 

was  almost  unused  among  the  labour-  the  reign  of  Anne  and  the  year  1750 
ing  poor.  The  formation  of  work-  (MRcpherson,  Hist,  of  Commerce,  in. -p. 
houses  in  1723  was  of  some  advantage,  560)  ;  yet  nearly  all  (he  evidence  we 
but  the  diet  of  their  inmates  was  possess  seems  to  show  that  the  pro- 
most  imprudently  and  indeed  ab-  sperity  of  the  country  had  during  that 
surdly  liberal.  See  Thornton's  Over-  period  been  steadily  increasing. 
Pojmlatwn,^]}.  205-207.  KnighVa  Pie-  '  This  curious  work  is  printed  in 
torial  IIistorii,\\.p.Mi.  Macanlay's  full  at  the  end  of  the  later  editions 
picture  of  the  condition  of  the  poor  of  Chalmers's  Estimate.  Macaulay, 
should  be  compared  with  the  admir-  as  will  be  seen,  has  much  overcharged 
able  chapter  on  the  same  subject  in  his  picture  of  the  wretchedness  of  the 
Mr.  Thornton's  Over- Population.  See,  poor  when  he  states,  on  the  authority 
too,  his  'Lahour,  pp.  11-12.  The  annual  of  King,  that  'hundreds  of  thousands 
expenditure  in  jwor  rates  is  said  to  of  families  scarcely  knew  the  taste  of 
have  trebled  between  the  close  of  meat.' 


CH.  IV.      DEFOE'S  DESCRIPTION  OF  ENGLISH  LABOURERS.       609 

facts  which  throw  a  vivid  light  on  the  condition  of  the  labour- 
ing- poor.     He  states  that  although  in  Yorkshire,  and  generally 
in  the  bishopric  of  Durham,  a  labourer's  weekly  wages  might 
be  only  4s.,  yet  in  Kent  and  in  several  of  the  southern  and 
western  counties  agricultural  weekly  wages  were  Vs.,  9s.,  and 
even  10s.     He  mentions  the  case  of  a  tilemaker,  to  whom  he 
had  for  several  years  paid  from  1 6s.  to  20s.  a  week,  and  states 
that  journeymen  weavers  could  earn  from  15s.  to  20s.  a  week. 
The  pauperism  of  the  country  he  ascribes  not  to  any  want  of 
employment,  but  almost  wholly  to  habits  of  vagrancy,  drunken- 
ness, and  extravagance.     '  I  affirm,'  he  says,  '  of  my  own  know- 
ledge, that  when  I  wanted   a  man   for  labouring  work,  and 
offered  9s.  per  week  to  strolling  fellows  at  my  door,  they  have 
frequently   told   me    to    my  face    that    they  could  get    more 
a-begging.'     '  Good  husbandry,'  he  adds,  '  is  no  English  virtue 
...  it  neither  loves,  nor  is  beloved  by,  an  Englishman.     The 
English  get  estates  and  the  Dutch  save  them  ;  and  this  observa- 
tion I  have  made  between    foreigners  and   Englishmen^ — that 
where  an  Englishman  earns  his  20s.  a  week,  and  but  just  lives, 
as  we  call  it,  a  Dutchman  grows  rich,  and  leaves  his  children  in 
very  good  condition.     Where  an  English  labouring  man,  with 
liis  9s.  a  week,  lives  wretchedly  and  poor,  a  Dutchman,  with 
that  wages,  will  live  tolerably  well.  .  .  .  We  are  tlie  most  lazy, 
diligent  nation  in  the  world.     There  is  nothing  more  frequent 
than  for  an  Englishman  to  work  till  he  has  got  his  pockets  full 
of  money,  and  then  go  and  be  idle,  or  perhaps  drunk,  till  it 
is  all  gone,  and  perhaps  himself  in  debt ;  and  ask  him,  in  his 
cups,  what  he  intends,  he'll  tell  you  honestly  he  will  drink  as 
long  as  it  lasts,  and  then  go  to  work  for  more.     I  make  no 
difficulty  to  promise,  on  a  short  summons,  to  produce  above  a 
thousand  families  in  England,  within  my  particular  knowledge, 
who  go  in  rags,  and  their  children  wanting  bread,  whose  fathers  ■ 
can  earn  their  15s.  to  25s.  a  week,  but  will  not  work.  .  .  .    The 
reason  why  so  many  pretend  to  want  work  is  that,  as  they  can 
live  so  well  on  the  pretence  of  wanting  work,  they  would  be  mad 
to  have  it  and  work  in  earnest.'     He  maintains  that  wages  in 
.        TOL.  I.  40 


610  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  ch.  it. 

England  were  higher  than  in  any  other  country  in  Europe,  that 
hands  and  not  employment  were  wanting,  and  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  labour  market  was  clearly  shown  by  the  impossi- 
bility of  obtaining  a  sufficient  number  of  recruits  for  the  army, 
without  resorting  to  the  press-gang.  When,  a  few  years  later, 
the  commercial  treaty  between  France  and  England  was  dis- 
cussed, one  of  the  strongest  arguments  of  its  opponents  was  the 
danger  of  French  competition,  on  account  of  the  much  greater 
cheapness  of  French  labour.  'The  French,'  said  one  of  the 
writers  in  the  '  British  Merchant,'  '  did  always  outdo  us  in  the 
price  of  labour  ;  their  common  people  live  upon  roots,  cabbage, 
and  other  herbage  ;  four  of  their  large  provinces  subsist  entirely 
upon  chestnuts,  and  the  best  of  them  eat  bread  made  of  barley, 
millet,  Turkey  and  black  corn  .  .  .  they  generally  drink  nothing 
but  water,  and  at  best  a  sort  of  liquor  they  call  beuverage  (which 
is  water  passed  through  the  husks  of  grapes  after  the  wine  is 
drawn  off) ;  they  save  a  great  deal  upon  that  account,  for  it  is 
well  known  that  our  people  spend  half  of  their  money  in  drink.' ' 
As  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge  from  the  few  scattered  facts 
that  are  preserved,  the  position  of  the  poor  seems  on  the  whole 
to  have  steadily  improved  in  the  long  pacific  period  during 
the  reigns  of  George  I.  and  George  II.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
wheat  bread  began  to  supersede,  among  the  labouring  classes, 
bread  made  of  rye,  barley,  or  oats,  and  the  rate  of  wages  slightly 
advanced  without  any  corresponding,  or  at  least  equivalent,  rise 
in  the  price  of  the  articles  of  first  necessity.  When  Arthur 
Young  investigated  the  agricultural  condition  of  the  southern 
coimties  in  1768,  he  found  that  the  average  weekly  rate  of 
agricultural  wages  for  the  whole  year  round,  was  lOs.  9d. 
within  20   miles  of  London  ;    7s.  8d.  at  a  distance   of    from 

'  British  Merchant,   i.   6,    7.     'I  'WTien  the  post-horses  are  changed,  the 

think    nothing    so    terrible,'    wrote  whole  town  comes  out  to  beg,  with 

Lady  M.   Montagu,  when  travelling  such    miserable     starved   faces    and 

through  France  in  1718,  '  as  objects  thin  tattered  clothes,  they  need  no 

of  misery,  except  one  had  the  God-  other  eloquence  to  persuade  one  of 

like   attribute    of   being  capable   to  the  wretchedness  of  their  condition.' 

redress  them;   and  all   the   country  —Lady    M.    W.     Montagu's     Works 

villages  of  France  show  nothing  else.  (Lord  Wharncliffe's  edition),  ii.  p.  89. 


CH.  IV.  AGEICULTURAL  LABOUKERS.  611 

20  to  60  miles  from  London  ;  6s.  4:d.  at  from  60  to  110  miles 
from  London;  6s.  3cl.  at  from  110  to  170  miles.  The  highest 
wages  were  in  the  eastern  counties,  the  lowest  in  the  western 
counties,  and  especially  in  G-loucestershire  and  Wiltshire.  In 
some  parts  of  these  he  found  that  the  agricultural  wages  were 
not  higher  than  4s.  6d.  in  winter  and  6s.  in  summer.  In  the 
north  of  England,  which  he  described  in  1770,  he  found  that 
agricultural  wages,  for  the  whole  year,  ranged  from  4s.  lid.  to 
9s.  9d.,  the  average  being  7s.  Id.  Within  300  miles  to  the 
north  of  London,  the  average  rate  in  diflferent  districts  varied 
only  from  6s.  9d.  to  7s.  2d. ;  but  beyond  that  distance  it  fell  to 
58.  8d.  Twenty  years  later,  the  same  admirable  observer,  after 
a  detailed  examination  of  the  comparative  condition  of  the 
labouring  classes  in  England  and  France,  pronoimced  agricul- 
tural wages  in  the  latter  country  to  be  76  per  cent,  lower  than 
in  England,  and  he  has  left  a  most  emphatic  testimony  to  the 
enormous  superiority  in  well-being  of  the  English  labourer.^ 

One  change,  however,  was  taking  place  which  was,  on  the 
whole,  to  his  disadvantage.  It  was  inevitable  that  with  the 
progress  of  agriculture  the  vast  tracts  of  common  land  scattered 
over  England  should  be  reclaimed  and  enclosed,  and  it  was 
almost  equally  inevitable  that  the  permanent  advantage  derived 
from  them  should  be  reaped  by  the  surrounding  landlords. 
Clauses  were,  it  is  true,  inserted  in  most  Enclosure  Bills  pro- 
viding compensation  for  those  who  had  common  rights ;  and 
the  mere  increase  of  the  net  produce  of  the  soil  had  some  eflfect 
in  raising  the  price  of  labour ;  but  the  main  and  enduring 
benefits  of  the  enclosures  necessarily  remained  with  those  in 
whose  properties  the  common  land  was  incorporated,  and  by 
whose  capital  it  was  fructified.  After  a  few  generations  the 
right  of  free  pastiue,  which  the  English  peasant  had  formerly 
enjoyed,  had  passed  away,  while  the  compensation  he  had  re- 

'  Arthur  Young's  SoittJiern  Tour,  Ofer- Population  and  L<ihour,Knigh.t's 

pp.  !?21-324.     Norilierfi  Tour,  iv.  pp.  Pictoi'ial  TTist.  of  England,  vol.  iv., 

293-297.     Tour  in  France.     See,  too,  T&in&'s  Ancien  Regime . 
Eden's  Hist,  of  the  Poor,  Thornton's 


612  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

ceived  was  long  since  dissipated.  The  great  movement  for 
enclosing  common  land  belongs  chiefly  to  the  reign  of  George 
III.  but  it  had  begun  on  a  large  scale  under  his  predecessor. 
Only  two  Enclosure  Acts  had  been  passed  under  Anne,  and  only 
sixteen  under  George  I.  Under  George  II.  there  were  no  less 
than  226,  and  more  than  318,000  acres  were  enclosed.^ 

Though  the  population  of  London  was  little  more  than  a 
seventh  of  what  it  now  is,  the  magnitude  of  the  city  relatively 
to  the  other  towns  of  the  kingdom  was  much  greater  than  at 
present.  Under  the  Tudors  and  the  Stuarts  many  attempts  had 
been  made  to  check  its  growth  by  proclamations  forbidding  the 
erection  of  new  houses,  or  the  entertaining  of  additional  in- 
mates, and  peremptorily  enjoining  the  country  gentry  to  return 
to  their  homes  in  order  '  to  perform  the  duties  of  their  several 
charges  ....  to  be  a  comfort  unto  their  neighbours  ....  to 
renew  and  revive  hospitality  in  their  respective  counties.' 
Many  proclamations  of  this  kind  had  been  issued  during  the 
first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  the  last  occasion  in 
which  the  royal  prerogative  was  exercised  to  prevent  the  exten- 
sion of  London  beyond  its  ancient  limits  appears  to  have  been 
in  1674.2  From  that  time  its  progress  was  unimpeded,  and 
Davenant  in  1685  combated  the  prevalent  notion  that  it  was 
an  evil.^  The  cities  of  London  and  Westminster,  which  had 
originally  been  far  apart,  were  fully  joined  in  the  early  years  of 
the  seventeenth  centiu-y,  partly,  it  is  said,  through  the  great 
number  of  Scotch  who  came  to  London  on  the  accession  of 
James  I.,  and  settled  chiefly  along  the  Strand.'*  The  quarter 
now  occupied  by  St.  James's  Square,  Pall  Mall,  St.  James's  Street, 
and  Arlington  Street,  was  pasture  land  till  about  1680.  Evelyn, 
writing  in  1684,  stated  that  London  had  nearly  doubled  in  his 
own  recollection  ;^   but  in   the  beginning  of  the    eighteenth 

'  McCuUoch's  Statistical  Account  iv.  660,  676,  679,  742,  743. 
of  tite  British  Empire,  i.  550.  ^  Essay  -upon  Ways  and  Means. 

"^  Eden's  Hist,  of  the  Poor,  i.  1.36-  ■•  Howell's  Londinopolis  (1657),  p. 

137.     Craik's  Hist,  of  Commerce,  ii.  346. 

114.    See,  too,  on  the  alarm  felt  at  *  Eyelyn's  Diary,  June  12,  1684. 

the  increase  of  London,  Pari.  Hist. 


CB.  IT.  LONDON.  .  613 

century  Hackney,  Newington,  Marylebone,  Islington,  Chelsea, 
and  Kensington  were  still  rural  villages,  far  removed  from 
the  metropolis.  Marylebone,  which  was  probably  the  nearest, 
was  separated  from  it  by  a  full  mile  of  fields.  The  growth 
of  London  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  appears 
to  have  been  chiefly  in  the  direction  of  Deptford,  Hackney, 
and  Bloomsbury.  It  spread  also  on  the  southern  bank  of  the 
Thames  after  the  building  of  Westminster  Bridge  in  1736, 
and  especially  in  the  quarter  of  the  rich,  which  was  extending 
steadily  towards  the  west.  Horace  Walpole  mentions  that  when, 
in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  Lord  Burlington  built  his  great  house 
in  Piccadilly,  he  was  asked  why  he  placed  it  so  far  out  of  town, 
and  he  answered,  because  he  was  determined  to  have  no  build- 
ing beyond  him.  In  little  more  than  half  a  century  Burlington 
House  was  so  enclosed  with  new  streets  that  it  was  in  the  heart 
of  the  west  end  of  London.^  In  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne, 
the  most  fashionable  quarters  were  Bloomsbury  Square,  Lin- 
coln's Inn  Fields,  Soho  Square,  and  Queen's  Square,  West- 
minster. In  the  reign  of  Greorge  II.  they  included  Leicester 
Fields,  Golden  Square,  and  Charing  Cross.  Pall  Mall,  till  the 
middle  of  the  century,  was  a  fashionable  promenade.  Among 
other  amusements,  smock-racing  by  women  was  kept  up  there 
till  1733.2 

The  great  nobles  whose  houses  once  fringed  the  Strand 
generally  moved  westward.  Cavendish,  Hanover,  and  Grrosvenor 
Squares,  as  well  as  New  Bond  Street,  the  upper  part  of  Piccadilly, 
the  greater  part  of  Oxford  Street,  and  many  contiguous  streets 
were  built  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  butPortman 
Square  was  not  erected  till  about  1764,  nor  Berkeley  Square  till 
1798.  On  the  present  site  of  Curzon  Street  and  of  the  adjoin- 
ing streets.  May  fair,  with  one  short  interruption,  was  annually 
celebrated  till  1756.  It  lasted  for  six  weeks,  and  did  much  to 
demoralise  the  neighbourhood,  which  was  also  greatly  injured 
by  the  crowds  of  ruffians  who  passed  through  that  quarter  to 

'  Anecdotes  of  Paintin/j. 

*  Andrews's  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  62. 


614  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  it. 

witness  the  frequent  executions  at  Tyburn.  In  1748  we  find 
Chesterfield,  -whose  house  stood  near  the  border  of  May  fair, 
complaining-  bitterly  that  the  neighbouring  district  was  full  of 
thieves  and  murderers.^  It  appears  from  a  map  of  London, 
published  in  1733,^  that  there  then  were  no  houses  to  the  north 
of  Oxford  Street,  except  the  new  quarter  of  Cavendish  Square 
which  formed  a  small  promontory  bounded  by  INIarylebone 
Street  on  the  north  and  by  Oxford  Street  on  the  south,  and 
extending  from  Vere  Street  on  the  west  to  near  the  site  which 
is  now  occupied  by  Portland  Eoad.  Moving  on  eastward  the 
northern  frontier  Hne  of  London  touched  Montague  House,  now 
the  British  Museum.  It  then  gradually  ascended,  passed  a  few 
lanes  to  the  north  of  Clerkenwell  Green,  and  finally  reached 
Hoxton,  which  was  connected  by  some  scattered  houses  with 
the  metropoKs.  To  the  east,  London  stretched  far  into  "VNTiite- 
chapel  Street,  EatclifiFe  Highway,  and  Wapping,  which,  however, 
were  divided  from  one  another  by  large  open  spaces.  To  the  west 
the  new  quarter  of  Grrosvenor  Square  extended  close  to  Hyde 
Park,  and  there  were  also  a  few  houses  clustered  about  Hyde 
Park  Corner,  but  most  of  the  space  between  Grosvenor  Square 
and  what  is  now  called  Piccadilly  ^  was  open  ground.  Along 
the  Westminster  bank  of  the  river  the  town  reached  as  far  as 
the  Horseferry  opposite  Lambeth.  London  Bridge  was  still  the 
only  bridge  across  the  Thames,  and  the  only  considerable 
quarter  on  the  southern  side  of  the  river  was  in  its  neighbour- 
hood. Except  a  few  scattered  villages,  open  fields  extended 
over  all  the  ground  which  is  now  occupied  by  the  crowded 
thoroughfares  of  Belgravia,  Chelsea,  and  Kensington,  and  by 
the  many  square  miles  of  houses  which  stretch  along  the  north 
of  London  from  St.  John's  Wood  to  Hackney. 

No  less  than  eight  parishes  were  added  between  the  Eevolu- 
tion  and  the  death  of  George  11.,^  and  many  signs  indicate  the 

'  Doran's  TAfe  and  Letters  of  Mrs.  continuation    was     called    Portugal 

Montagu,  pp.  274-275.  Street,    and    near    Hyde    Park,   the 

*  Seymour's  Survey  of  London.  Exeter  Eoad. 

«  The  street  was  then  only  called  *  Craik's  Hist,  of  Commerce,  ii.  215. 

Piccadilly  to  Devonshire  House.   The 


CH.  IV.  LONDON.  615 

rapid  extension  of  the  town.  The  number  of  liackney  coaches 
authorised  in  London,  which  was  only  200  in  1652,  was  800  in 
1715,'  and  the  number  of  sedan  chairs  was  raised  from  200  in 
1694  to  400  in  1726.^  A  traveller  noticed,  about  1724,  that 
while  in  Paris,  Brussels,  Rome,  and  Vienna,  coaches  could  only 
be  hired  by  the  day,  or  at  least  by  the  hour,  in  London  they 
stood  at  the  corner  of  every  street.^  The  old  water-supply 
being  found  inadequate  for  the  wants  of  the  new  western  quarter, 
a  company  was  founded  in  1722,  and  a  reservoir  formed  in  Hyde 
Park.*  Above  all,  in  1711  a  most  important  step  was  taken  in 
the  interests  of  civilisation  by  the  full  organisation  of  a  London 
penny  post.*  Great  progress  was  made,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  lighting  the  streets 
and  protecting  the  passengers,  but  very  little  was  done  to  em- 
bellish the  city.  The  pavement  was  scandalously  inferior  to  that 
of  the  great  towns  of  the  Continent,  while  the  projecting  gutters 
from  the  roofs  of  the  houses  made  the  streets  almost  impassable' 
in  the  rain,  and  it  was  not  until  the  first  years  of  George  III. 
that  these  evils  were  remedied  by  law.^  Architectural  taste 
during  the  ascendency  of  Vanbrugh  was  extremely  low,  and  it 
is  worthy  of  note  that  the  badness  of  the  bricks  employed  in 
building,  which  has  been  represented  as  a  peculiar  characteristic 
of  the  workmanship  of  the  present  generation,  was  already  a 
matter  of  frequent  complaint.^ 

'  Macpherson,  ii.  449;  iii.  14.  300,  477. 

*  Ibid.  ii.  655 ;  iii.  134.  '  Macanlay  has  noticed  (c.   iii.), 
"  Macky's  Journey   tlirougli  Eng-       on  the  authority  of  Duke  Cosmo,  the 

la>id,\.  168.  Mvn^Vs  Letters  on  the  badness  of  the  bricks  of  the  city  which 
.English,  p.  84.  was  destroyed  by  the  fire.    Muralt,  in 

*  Macpherson,  iii.  121.  '  the  very  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 

*  Compare  Macpherson,  ii.  608 ;  century  (p.  76),  declares  that  Lon- 
iii,  13.  The  penny  -post  was  first  don  houses  seldom  last  more  than 
instituted  in  1682  as  a  private  enter-  forty  or  fifty  years,  and  sometimes 
prise  byan  upholsterer  named  Murray,  drop  before  the  end  of  that  term, 
who  assigned  it  to  one  Dockwra,  and  The  author  of  the  Letters  Concerning 
Government  ultimately  adopted  it.  the  Present  State  of  England  (1772), 
Its  first  mention  in  the  Statute  Book  says  :  '  The  material  of  all  common 
is  in  1711.  edifices,  viz.  bricks,  are  most  insuffer- 

'  Fugh's  Life  of  Hanway,  pp.  127-  ably  bad,  to  a  degree  that  destroys 

139.     See  too  the  description  of  the  the  beauty  of  half  the  buildings  about 

state  of  the  streets  in  Gay's  Irivia.  town,  making  them  seem  of  dirt  and 

Macpherson 's  Hist,  of  Comvierce,  iii.  mud  rather  than  brick.  ...  A  law 


616  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  iv. 

The  London  season  extended  from  October  to  May,  leav- 
ing four  months  during  which  the  theatres  were  closed  and 
all  forms  of  dissipation  suspended.'  In  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  London  was  still  unable  to  boast  of  any 
public  gallery  of  ancient  pictures  or  of  any  exhibition  of  the 
works  of  modern  artists.  The  British  Museum  was  not  yet 
formed.  Zoological  Gardens  were  still  unknown,  and  there 
was  nothing  of  that  variety  of  collections  which  is  so  conspicuous 
a  feature  of  the  present  century.  At  the  Tower,  it  is  true,  there 
had  for  centuries  been  a  collection  of  wild  animals,  which  many 
generations  of  country  visitors  regarded  as  so  pre-eminent 
among  the  sights  of  London  that  it  has  even  left  its  trace  upon 
the  language.  The  lions  of  the  Tower  are  the  origin  of  that 
application  of  the  term  '  lion '  to  any  conspicuous  spectacle  or 
personage,  which  has  long  since  become  universal.  A  much 
larger  proportion  of  amusements  than  at  present  were  carried 
on  in  the  open  air.  Besides  the  popular  gatherings  of  May  fair, 
Bartholomew  fair,  and  Southwark  fair,  there  were  the  public 
gardens  of  Vauxhall  and  of  Eanelagh,  which  occupy  so  prominent 
a  place  in  the  pictures  of  fashionable  life  by  Fielding,  Walpole, 
Groldsmith,  Lady  W.  Montagu,  and  Miss  Burney,  and  also  the 
less  famous  entertainments  of  Marylebone  Gardens,  and  of 
Cuper's  Gardens  on  the  Lambeth  side  of  the  Thames.  Vauxliall 
dated  from  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  Eanelagh 
Gardens,  which  occupied  part  of  the  present  site  of  the  gardens 
of  Chelsea  Hospital,  were  only  opened  in  1742.  Coflfee-houses, 
though  apparently  less  conspicuous  centres  of  news,  politics, 
and  fashion  than  they  had  been  under  Anne,  were  still  very 
numerous.  At  the  present  day  every  traveller  is  struck  with 
the  almost  complete  absence  in  London  of  this  element  of 
Continental  life,  but  in  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century 
coffee-houses  were  probably  more  prominent  in  London  than  in 
any  other  city  in  Emope.  A  writer  who  described  the  metropolis 

might    surely    be    enacted    against  sale,    that    are    made    in    London* 

using   or    making    such    detestable  (p.  241). 

materials,  by  having  all  bricks  under-  >  Ramller,  No.  124. 

go  a  survey  or   examination  before 


CH.  IV.  FASHIONABLE  HOURS.  617 

in  1708,  not  much  more  than  fifty  years  after  the  first  coflfee- 
house  had  been  established  in  England,  estimated  the  number 
of  these  institutions  at  nearly  3,000.' 

The  fashionable  hours  were  becoming  steadily  later.  Colley 
Cibber,  in  describing  the  popularity  of  Kynaston,  a  favourite 
actor  of  female  parts  under  Charles  II.,  mentions  that  ladies  of 
quality  were  accustomed  to  take  him  with  them  in  their  coaches 
to  Hyde  Park  in  his  theatrical  habit  after  the  play,  which  they 
could  then  do,  as  the  play  began  at  four  o'clock.^  '  The  land- 
marks of  our  fathers,'  wrote  Steele  in  1710,  '  are  removed,  and 
planted  further  up  in  the  day  ...  in  my  own  memory  the 
dinner  hour  has  crept  by  degrees  from  twelve  o'clock  to  three. 
Where  it  will  fix  nobody  knows.'  ^  In  the  reign  of  George  II. 
the  most  fashionable  dinner  hour  appears  to  have  been  four. 
The  habits  of  all  classes  were  becoming  less  simple.  Defoe 
noticed  that  within  the  memory  of  men  still  living  the  ap- 
prentices of  shopkeepers  and  warehousemen  habitually  served 
the  families  of  their  masters  at  table,  and  discharged  other 
menial  functions  which  in  the  reign  of  George  I.  they  would 
have  indignantly  spurned."  The  merchants  who  had  hitherto 
lived  in  the  city  near  their  counting-houses,  began,  early  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  to  migrate  to  other  quarters,  though 
they  at  first  seldom  went  further  than  Hatton  Garden.* 
Domestic  service  was  extremely  disorganised.  Almost  all  the 
complaints  on  this  subject,  which  in  our  own  day  we  hear  upon 
every  side  and  which  are  often  cited  as  conclusive  proofs  of 
the  degeneracy  of  the  English  people,  were  quite  as  loud 
and  as  emphatic  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  as  at  present. 
It  was  said  that  while  no  servants  in  Europe  were  so  highly 

'  Sa,tton''s  JVew  View  of  JOondon,  i.      oi,^  „„„n.«  „i  • i      j  j.        ,.     , 

^    QA       A/r„^„          *^-      1              1    .•       '.  She  went  to  plain  work  and  to  purling  brooks, 

p.  60.      Many  particulars  relating  to  Old-fashioned  halls,  duU  aunts,  and  croaking 

these  cofEee-houses  will  be  found  in  rooks. 

Timhs's  Club  Life  in  London.    '  rr„„„„t     *•  **   •_.*     ^-    *    ^.  ^  t 

1  n-v-u     I      J       7  1.    ,-  To  pass  her  time  twixt  reading  and  bohea, 

Cibber  S  Apology,  ch.  5.  To  muse,  and  spill  her  solitary  tea, 

*  Tatler,  No.  263.     In  the  country  Or  o'er  cold  coffee  trifle  with  the  spoon, 

the  old  hours  seem  to  have  gone  on.  ^°^^  *^^  ^^"^  '=^°'='"''  '^^^  "^'^e  exact  at  noon. 

Pope,  in  his  Epistle  to  Mrs.  Blount,  on  *  Beliaviour    of   the    Sei-vants  of 

her    leaving    town  for  the    country,  England,  p.  12. 

says —  s  lidiVfiencQ's  Lif e  of  Melding, T^.&&, 


6 18  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  ch.  rv. 

paid  or  so  well  fed  as  the  English,  none  were  so  insolent, 
exacting,  or  nomadic,  that  the  tie  of  affection  between  master 
and  servant  was  completely  broken,  that  on  the  smallest  provo- 
cation or  at  the  hope  of  the  smallest  increase  of  wages,  or  still 
more  of  vales,  the  servant  threw  up  his  place,  and  that  no  other 
sintrle  cause  contributed  so  largely  to  the  discomfort  of  families. 
Servants  had  their  clubs,  and  their  societies  for  maintaining 
each  other  when  out  of  place,  and  they  copied  only  too  faith- 
fully the  follies  and  the  vices  of  their  masters.  There  were 
bitter  complaints  of  how  they  wore  their  masters'  clothes  and 
assumed  their  masters'  names,  how  there  were  in  liveries  '  beaux, 
fops,  and  coxcombs,  in  as  high  perfection  as  among  people  that 
kept  equipages,'  how  near  the  entrance  of  the  law-courts  and 
the  Parliament,  a  host  of  servants  kept  up  '  such  riotous  clam- 
our and  licentious  confusion '  that  '  one  would  think  there  were 
no  such  thing  as  rule  or  distinction  among  us.'  ^  In  the  theatres 
especially  they  were  a  constant  som-ce  of  disturbance.  It  was 
the  custom  of  the  upper  classes  to  send  their  footmen  before 
them  to  keep  their  places  during  the  first  acts  of  the  play,  and 
they  afterwards  usually  retired  to  the  upper  gallery,  to  which 
they  claimed  the  right  of  free  admission.  Their  constant  disorder 
led  to  their  expulsion  from  Drury  Lane  theatre  in  1737,  which 
they  resented  by  a  furious  riot.  The  presence  of  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Wales  was  unable  to  allay  the  storm,  and  order  was 
not  restored  tiU  twenty-five  or  twenty-six  persons  had  been 
seriously  injured.^ 

'  Spectator,  No.  88.  World,  No.  157.  -n-hen  out  of  place,  and  if  any  of  them 

Angeloni's  Letters  on  the  English,  ii.  cannot  manage  the  family  where  they 

38-42.      Defoe's    Behaviour    of    the  are   entertained  as  they  please,  im- 

Servants  of  England.     Fielding's  Old  mediately  they  give  notice  they  will 

Men   Taught    Wisdom.      Gentleman's  be  gone.     There   is  no   speaking   to 

Magazine,  llil,   pp.   2i9-250.     Gon-  them ;  they  are  above  correction.  ..  . 

zales,    a    Portuguese    traveller    who  It  is  become  a  common  saying,  "If 

visited    England    in    1730,     writes  :  my  servant  ben't  a  thief,  if  he  be  but 

*Asto  the  common  and  menial  ser-  honest,  I  can  bear  vrith  other  things," 

vants    [of  London]  they  have  great  and,  indeed,  it  is  very  rare  to  meet 

wages,   are   weU  kept   and  clothed,  in  London  with  an  honest  servant.' — 

but  are  notwithstanding  the  plague  Pinkerton's  Travels,  ii.  95. 
of  almost  every  house  in  town.     They  ^  Lawrence's  Lfie  of  Fielding,  pp. 

form    themselves    into   societies,   or  63-64.     Mrs.  Delany's  Life  and  Cor- 

rather     confederacies,     contributing  respondence,  i.  398-399. 
to  the  maintenance   of    each  other 


ch.it.  domestic  service.  619 

This  state  of  things  was  the  natural  consequence  of  luxurious 
and  ostentatious  habits,  acting  upon  a  national  character  by  no 
means  peculiarly  adapted  to  domestic  service.  There  were,  how- 
ever, also  several  special  causes  at  work,  which  made  the  con- 
dition of  domestic  service  a  great  national  evil.  The  most 
conspicuous  were  the  custom  of  placing  servants  on  board 
wages,  which  was  very  prevalent  in  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  and  which  encouraged  them  to  frequent  clubs  and 
taverns ;  the  constant  attendance  of  servants  upon  their  mis- 
tresses in  the  great  scenes  of  fashionable  dissipation ;  the  law 
which  communicated  to  the  servants  of  peers  and  Members  of 
Parliament  the  immunity  from  arrest  for  debt  enjoyed  by  their 
masters;  and,  above  all,  the  system  of  vales,  which  made  ser- 
vants in  a  great  degree  independent  of  their  masters.  This 
system  had  been  carried  in  England  to  an  extent  unparalleled  in 
Europe;  and  tlie  great  prominence  given  to  it  in  the  literature 
of  the  early  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  shows  how  wide- 
spread and  demoralising  it  had  become.  When  dining  with  his 
nearest  relation  a  gentleman  was  expected  to  pay  the  servants 
who  attended  him,  and  no  one  of  small  fortune  could  accept 
many  invitations  from  a  great  nobleman,  on  account  of  the  large 
sums  whicli  had  to  be  distributed  among  the  numerous  domestics. 
No  feature  of  English  life  seemed  more  revolting  or  astonishing 
to  foreigners  than  an  English  entertainment  where  the  guests, 
often  under  the  eyes  of  the  host,  passed  from  the  drawing-room 
through  a  double  row  of  footmen,  each  one  of  them  expect- 
ing and  receiving  his  fee.  It  was  said  that  a  foreign  minister, 
dining  on  a  great  occasion  with  a  nobleman  of  the  highest 
rank,  usually  expended  in  this  way  as  much  as  ten  guineas,  that 
a  sum  of  two  or  three  guineas  was  a  common  expenditure  in 
great  houses,  and  that  a  poor  clergyman,  invited  to  dine  with 
his  bishop,  not  unfrequently  spent  in  vales  to  the  servants,  at  a 
single  dinner,  more  than  would  have  fed  his  family  for  a  week. 
Dr.  King  tells  a  story  of  a  poor  nobleman  who  in  Queen  Anne's 
time  was  an  intimate  friend  of  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  and  who 
regularly  received  a  guinea  with  every  invitation,  for  distribu- 


620  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  ch.  it. 

tion  among  the  servants  of  his  host.  The  eflfect  of  this  system 
in  weakening  the  authority  of  masters,  and  in  demoralising  ser- 
vants, was  universally  recognised,  and  soon  after  the  middle  of 
the  century  a  great  movement  arose  to  abolish  it,  the  servants 
being  compensated  by  a  higher  rate  of  wages.  The  move- 
ment began  among  the  gentry  of  Scotland.  The  grand  jury 
of  Northumberland  and  the  grand  jury  of  Wiltshire  followed 
the  example,  pledging  themselves  to  discourage  the  system 
of  vales,  but  many  years  still  elapsed  before  it  was  finally 
eradicated.' 

Of  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  city  it  is  extremely  dif- 
ficult to  speak  with  confidence.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  cleanliness  and  good  ventilation  had  greatly  increased,^ 
and  in  at  least  one  respect  a  marked  improvement  of  the 
national  health  had  recently  taken  place.  The  plague  of 
London  was  not  a  single  or  isolated  outbm-st.  It  had  been 
chronic  in  London  during  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  though  greatly  diminished  had  not  been  extir- 
pated by  the  fire.  By  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  it  completely  disappeared,  and  it  was  noticed  that 
from  this  time  the  deaths  from  colic  and  dysentery  decreased 
with  an  extraordinary  rapidity.  In  each  successive  decen- 
nial period  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
annual  average  of  deaths  from  this  source  was  much  less  than 
in  the  preceding  one,  and  the  average  in  the  last  decennial 

'  Eight  Letters  to   his   Grace  the  j'ards,  and  pipes  for  conveying  plenty 

Duke  of on,  the  Custom  of  Vails-  of  fresh  water  to  keep  them  clean  and 

giving  in  England  [by  Hanway,  the  sweet;  many  late  stately  edifices,  large 
Persian  traveller]  (London,  1760).  clean  courts,  lofty  rooms,  large  sash- 
King's  Anecdotes  of  his  Omn  Time,  pp.  lights,  &c.,  and  many  excellent  con- 
51-52.  Reresby's  Memoirs,  p.  377.  veniences  both  by  land  and  water,  for 
Angeloni's  Letters  on  the  English,  ii.  supplying  the  city  with  fresh  pro- 
pp.  38-42.  World,  No.  60.  Connoisseur,  visions  at  moderate  prices  .  .  .  must 
No.  70.  Dodsley's  High  Life  leloiv  contribute  not  a  little  to  make  the 
Stairs.  Roberts's  Social  Hist,  of  the  city  more  healthy.' — Short's  Compa- 
Southern  Counties,  pp.  32-34.  rative  Hist,  of  the  Increase  and  De- 
*  '  Many  of  its  streets  have  been  crease  of  Mankind  in  England  and 
widened,  made  straight,  raised,  paved  Abroad  (1767),  p.  20.  See,  too,  Mac- 
with  easy  descents  to  carry  ofE  the  pherson's  Annals  of  Commerce,  iii. 
water;  besides  wells  in  most  public  321. 


CH.  IV.  DISEASE.  621 

period  is  said  to  have  been  little  more  than  a  tenth  of  what 
it  had  been  in  the  first  one.'  The  statistics,  however,  both  of 
disease  and  of  population,  were  so  fluctuating  and  so  uncertain 
that  it  is  rash  to  base  much  upon  them.  It  appears,  however, 
evident  that  the  mortality  of  the  towns  as  compared  with  the 
country,  and  the  mortality  of  infants  as  compared  with  adults, 
were  considerably  greater  than  at  present,^  and  also  that  the 
population  of  London  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  century,  if  it 
did  not,  as  was  often  said,  absolutely  decrease,  at  least  advanced 
much  less  rapidly  than  in  the  first  quarter.  The  great  spread 
of  gin-drinking  was  followed  both  by  a  serious  diminution  in 
the  number  of  births,  and  by  a  great  increase  in  the  number  of 
deaths,  and  was,  no  doubt,  regarded,  with  justice,  as  the  chief 
enemy  of  the  public  health.^  Medical  science  had  been  some- 
what improved,  but  the  practice  of  lowering  the  constitution  by 
excessive  bleedings  was  so  general  that  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  on  the  whole  it  did  not  kill  more  than  it  cured.  The 
great  progress  of  botany  had,  as  was  natural,  some  effect  upon  it. 
A  garden  of  medical  plants  was  created  at  Chelsea  by  the 
Company  of  Apothecaries  as  early  as  1673,  and  it  was  greatly 

*  Heberden's  Observations  on  the  '  Dr.  Short  says  the  passion  for 

Increase  and  Decrease  of   Different  spirituous  liquors    'began  to  diffuse 

Diseases      (1801).      This       eminent  its  pernicious  effects  in  172i,  at  the 

authority,  having  given  many  statis-  very  time  when  the  city  began  to  be 

tics  on  the  subject,  concludes :  '  The  more  fruitful  and  healthy  than  it  had 

cause  of  so  great  an  alteration  in  the  been    since    the    Restoration.     How 

health  of  the  people  of  England  (for  powerfully  this  poison   wrought  let 

it  is  not  conlined  to  the  metropolis)  us  now  see.    From  1704  to  1724  were 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  attributing  to  bom  336,514,  buried  474,125.     Let  us 

the  improvements  which  have  gradu-  allow   fourteen   years   for    this   dire 

ally  taken  place,  not  only  in  London  bane  to  spread,  operate,  and  become 

but  in  all  the  great  towns,  and  in  the  epidemic;  then  from  1738  to  1758  were 

manner    of    living    throughout    the  born  296,831,  buried  486,171.     Here 

kingdom ;   particularly  in  respect  to  we  have  two  shocking  effects  of  this 

cleanliness  and  ventilation  '  (p.  35).  bewitching  liquor.     First,  here  is  a 

^  See  the  article  on  Vital  Statistics,  greater  barrenness,  a  decrease  or  want 

inMcGxAlocWs  Statistical  A eco^int  of  of   40,000  of  ordinary  births  which 

the  British  Empire,  and  Short's  Com-  the  last  vicennary  produced,  instead 

parative  History.  According  to  Short,  of   an  increase,   as  we  had  in  other 

♦the  cities  and  great  towns  in  the  vicennaries.      Secondly,   an   increase 

kingdom  may  be  deemed  as  so  many  of  12,000  buryings,  though  there  was 

slaughterhouses  of  the  people  of  the  so  great  a  defect  of  births.'— Short's 

nation  '  (p  22).  Comparative  History,  p.  21. 


622  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  ch.  iv. 

improved  in  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  chiefly  by 
the  instrumentality  of  Sir  Hans  Sloane.  This  very  remarkable 
man  was  ahnost  equally  distinguished  as  a  physician  and  as  a 
botanist,  and  among  other  services  to  medicine  he  greatly  ex- 
tended the  use  of  Peruvian  bark.'  A  still  more  important  fact 
in  the  history  of  English  medicine  was  the  increased  study  of 
anatomy.  The  popular  prejudice  against  dissection  which  had 
for  centuries  paralysed  and  almost  prevented  this  study  still 
ran  so  high  in  England  that  in  spite  of  the  number  of  capital 
punishments,  it  was  only  with  great  difficulty  the  civil  power 
could  accommodate  surgeons  with  proper  subjects,  and  all 
publicity  was  studiously  avoided.  No  English  artist,  unless  he 
desired  to  hold  up  to  abhorrence  the  persons  whose  portraits  he 
drew,  would  have  painted  such  a  subject  as  the  famous  study  of 
anatomy  by  Eembrandt.  \N'ith  such  a  state  of  feeling  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  English  medical  school,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  should  have  been  far  inferior  to  that 
which  gathered  round  the  chair  of  Boerhaave  at  Leyden.  In  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne,  however,  a  French  refugee  surgeon,  named 
Bussiere,  began  for  the  first  time  to  give  public  lectures  on 
anatomy  in  England,  and  the  example  was  speedily  followed  by 
two  anatomists  of  great  ability.'*  Cheselden  commenced,  in 
1711,  a  series  of  lectures  on  anatomy,  which  continued  for  twenty 
years.  The  first  Monro  opened  a  similar  course  at  Edinburgh 
in  1719,  and  a  school  of  medicine  arose  in  that  city  which  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  century  had  no  superior  in  Europe.  The 
passion  for  anatomy  was  shown  in  the  illegal  efforts  made 
to  obtain  bodies  for  dissection ;  and  Shenstone  in  one  of  his 
elegies,  complains  bitterly  of  the  frequent  violation  of  the 
tomb.^ 

In  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  also  the  first 

'  Pulteney,  Progress  of  Botany  in  given  the  Eoyal  Society  the  privilege 

England,  ii.  85,  99-103.  of  taking  bodies   of  malefactors  for 

''■  Nichols'   TAterary  Anecdotes  of  anatomical  purposes.     Hatton's  New 

tlie    Eighteenth     Century,    iv.     618.  View  of  London,  iL  665. 

Miller's  Retrospect  of  the  Eighteenth  '  Elegy  xxii. 
Century,    ii.    10.      Charles    II.    had 


CH.  IV.  INOCULATION.  623 

serious  attempt  was  made  to  restrain  the  small-pox,  which  had 
long  been  one  of  the  greatest  scourges  of  Europe.  Inoculation, 
as  is  well  known,  was  introduced  into  England  from  Turkey  by- 
Lady  Mary  Montagu,  and  by  Dr.  Maitland,  the  physician  of 
the  Embassy,  and  the  son  of  the  former,  afterwards  the  famous 
traveller,  was  the  first  English  subject  who  was  inoculated.  On 
her  return  to  England  in  1722,  Lady  Mary  Montagu  laboured 
earnestly  to  propagate  the  system,  and  the  Princess  of  Wales, 
afterwards  Queen  Caroline,  whose  mind  was  always  open  to  new 
ideas  and  who  exhibited  no  small  courage  in  carrying  them  out, 
at  once  perceived  the  importance  of  the  discovery.  She  obtained 
permission  to  have  the  experiment  tried  on  five  criminals  who  had 
been  condemned  to  death,  and  who  were  pardoned  on  condition  of 
undergoing  it.  In  four  cases  it  was  perfectly  successful,  and  the 
remaining  criminal  confessed  that  she  had  had  the  disease  when 
a  child. 

The  physicians,  however,  at  first  generally  discouraged  the 
practice.  Popular  feeling  was  vehemently  roused  against  it, 
and  some  theologians  denounced  it  as  tempting  Providence  by 
artificially  superinducing  disease,  endeavouring  to  counteract 
a  Divine  visitation,  and  imitating  the  action  of  the  devil,  who 
caused  boils  to  break  out  upon  the  body  of  Job.  Sir  Hans 
Sloane,  however,  fully  recognised  the  value  of  inoculation,  and 
the  Princess  of  Wales  had  two  of  her  children  inoculated  in  the 
very  beginning  of  the  movement.  This  act  exposed  her  to  no 
little  obloquy,  but  it  had  some  effect  in  encom-aging  the  practice, 
and  the  adhesion  of  Madox,  the  Bishop  of  Worcester,  was  useful 
in  counteracting  the  theological  prejudice  it  had  aroused.  Still 
for  some  years  it  advanced  very  slowly.  Only  845  persons  were 
"inocTilated  in  England  in  the  eight  years  that  followed  its  intro- 
duction, and  it  seemed  likely  altogether  to  die  out  when  news 
arrived  that  some  of  the  planters  in  the  West  Indies  had  made 
use  of  it  for  their  slaves  with  complete  success.  From  this 
time  the  tide  turned.  In  1746  a  small-pox  hospital  was  founded 
in  London  for  the  purpose  of  inoculation,  and  in  1754  the 
College    of    Physicians    pronounced    in    its  favour.      It  had. 


624      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.     ch.  it.. 

however,  long  to  struggle  against  a  violent  prejudice  in  the 
country,  and  as  late  as  1765  only  6,000  persons  had  been  inocu- 
lated in  Scotland. 

This  prejudice  was  less  unreasonable  than  has  been  supposed. 
Though  some  patients  died  from  inoculation,  its  efficacy  in  secur- 
ing those  who  underwent  the  operation  from  one  of  the  most 
deadly  of  diseases  was  unquestionable.  It  was,  however,  only  very 
partially  practised,  and  as  its  object  was  to  produce  in  the  patient 
the  disease  in  a  mitigated  form,  it  had  the  effect  of  greatly  multi- 
plying centres  of  infection,  and  thus  propagating  the  very  evil  it 
was  intended  to  arrest.  To  those  who  were  wise  enough  to  avail 
themselves  of  it,  it  was  a  great  blessing  ;  but  to  the  poor  and  the 
ignorant,  who  repudiated  it,  it  was  a  scourge,  and  for  some  years 
after  it  was  widely  introduced,  the  deaths  from  small-pox  were 
found  rapidly  to  increase.  If  inoculation  can  be  regarded  as  a 
national  benefit  it  was  chiefly  because  it  led  the  way  to  the  great 
discovery  of  Jenner.' 

It  was  in  this  respect  somewhat  characteristic  of  the  period 
in  which  it  arose.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  the 
first  sixty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  the  great  number 
of  new  powers  or  influences  that  were  then  called  into  action  of 
which  the  full  significance  was  only  perceived  long  afterwards. 
It  was  in  this  period  that  Eussia  began  to  intervene  actively  in 
Western  politics,  and  Prussia  to  emerge  from  the  crowd  of 
obscure  German  States  into  a  position  of  commanding  emi- 
nence. It  was  in  this  period  that  the  first  steps  were  taken  in 
many  works  which  were  destined  in  succeeding  generations 
to  exercise  the  widest  and  most  abiding  influence  on  human 
affairs.  It  was  then  that  the  English  Deists  promulgated 
doctrines  which  led  the  way  to  the  great  movement  of  European 

'  Lady  M.  W.  Montagu's    WorJis  Eighteenth  Century,  iv.  625.   Nichols' 

(Lord  WharnclifEe's  ed.),  i.  pp.  xxii.  Literary    Illustrations,    i.    277-280. 

55-60,     391-393.     Baron's     lAfe    of  Voltaire's  Lcttres  sur  les  Anglois,  let. 

Jenner,  vol.  i.  230-233.     Gentleman's  xi.     Heberden's    Ohservatwns  on  the 

Magazine,  xxvii.  409.     Haygarth  on  Increase   and    Decrease    of   Disease, 

Casual  Small-jjox  (1793),  vol.  i.  p.  31.  p.  36. 
Nichols'   Literary   Anecdotes  of   the 


CH.  IV.  DECLINE   OP   EELIGIOUS   FANATICISJI.  625 

scepticism,  that  Diderot  foimded  the  French  Encyclopedia,  that 
Voltaire  began  his  crusade  against  the  dominant  religion  of 
Christendom ;   that   a   few   obscure   Quakers   began   the   long 
struggle  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  ;  that  Wesley  sowed   the 
first  seeds  of  religious  revival  in  England.     Without  any  great 
or  salient  revolutions  the  aspect  of  Europe  was  slowly  changing, 
and  before  the  middle  of  the  century  had  arrived  both  the 
balance  of  power  and  the  lines  of  division  and  antagonism  were 
profoundly  modified.     Industrial  interests  and  the  commercial 
spirit  had  acquired  a  new  preponderance  in  politics,  and  theo- 
logical influence  had  at  least  proportionately  declined.     The 
fear  of  Mohammedan  aggression,  which  was  one  great  source 
of  theological  passions  in  Christendom,  had  now  passed  away. 
The  power  of  the  Turks  was  broken  by  the  war  which  ended  in 
the  Peace  of  Carlowitz,  and  eighteen  years  later  by  the  victories 
of  Eugene,  and   although   they  waged  a  successful  war  with 
Austria  in  1739,  their  triumph  was  much  more  due  to  the  dis- 
organisation of  their   opponents  than  to  their  own  strength. 
Among  Christian  sects  the  frontier  lines  were  now  clearly  traced. 
In  Grermany,  as  we  have  seen,  the  political  position  of  Pro- 
testantism at  the  time  of  the  Eevolution  appeared  very  pre- 
carious, and  a  new  danger  arose  when  the  Sovereign  of  Saxony 
bartered  his  faith  for  the  crown  of  Poland.     But  this  danger 
had  wholly  passed.     The  elevation  of  Hanover  into  an  Elec- 
torate and  of  Prussia  into  a  kingdom,  the  additional  strength 
acquired  by  Hanover  through  its  connection  with  England,  and 
the  rapid  development  of  the  greatness  of  Prussia,  would  have 
secured  German  Protestantism  from  danger  even  if  the  zeal  of 
the  Catholic  States  had  not  greatly  abated.     The  only  religious 
war  of  the  period  broke  out  in  Switzerland  in  1712,  and  it  ended 
;in  the  complete  triumph  of  the  Protestant  cantons,  and  the 
spirit  of  fanaticism  and  of  persecution  had  everywhere  declined. 
Two  Protestant   States,  however,  which  had  played  a  great  and 
noble  part  in  the  history  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  sunk 
gradually  into   comparative  insignificance.     Sweden  never  re- 
covered the  effects  of  its  disastrous  war  with  Russia.     Holland. 
VOL.  I.  41 


626  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.  ch.  iv. 

through  causes  that  were  partly  political  and  partly  economical, 
had  ceased  to  exercise  any  great  influence  beyond  its  borders. 
France  exhibited  some  decline  of  energy  and  ambition,  and  a 
marked  decline  of  administrative  and  military  ability ;  and  some 
of  the  elements  of  decomposition  might  be  already  detected 
which  led  to  the  convulsions  of  the  Eevolution.  In  England 
the  Protestant  succession  and  Parliamentary  institutions  were 
firmly  established,  and  the  position  of  the  country  in  Europe 
vfas  on  the  whole  sustained. 


END   OF   THB   FIRST   VOLUME. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  RISE  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

ov 

EATIOMLISI  n  EUEOPE. 

By  WILLIAM  E.  H,  LECKY,  M.  A. 


2  vols,  small  8vo.  Cloth,  $4.00;  half  calf,  extra,  $8.00. 


Edinburgh  Bevieic. 
"We  closed  these  volumes  with  the  conviction  that  Mr.  Lecky  is  one  of  the  most  ac- 
complished writers  and  one  of  the  most  ingenious  thinkers  of  the  time,  and  that  his  book 
deserves  the  highest  commendation  we  can  bestow  upon  it.    We  hope  to  see  it  take  its 
place  among  the  best  literary  productions  of  the  age." 

J  thenceum. 
"  Mr.  Lecky  is  the  historian  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  that  resistance  to  the  Christianity 
of  clerical  interpretation  which  has  gone  by  the  names  of  private  judgment,  rationalism, 
latitudinarianism,  blasphemy,  infidelity,  or  atheism,  according  to  the  speaker  and  his  bias. 
Mr.  Lecky  is  learned,  sensible,  and  readable,  and  we  wish  his  book  a  wide  circulation.  It 
comes  at  a  time  when  it  is  wanted." 

Fall  Mall  Gazette. 
"  Mr.  Lecky  has  written  an  admirable  book,  now  and  then  a  little  youthful  in  its  elo- 
quence, but,  on  the  whole,  full  of  learning  and  acute  criticism  on  the  modernization  of  the 
Christian  theology.    The  history  of  the  decline  of  credulity  and  of  the  growth  of  the  de- 
mand for  evidence  in  modern  society,  is  exceedingly  well  given  by  Mr.  Lecky." 

SiKctator. 
"  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  overrate  the  value  of  Mr.  Lecky's  able  and  vigorous  book, 
both  to  those  who  agree  and  to  those  who  differ  with  its  implied  teaching,  a  book  the  st."le 
of  which  is  as  luminous  and  attractive  as  its  learning  is  profound.  No  book  more  full  of 
scholarly  learning  and  popular  interest,  more  graphic  in  thought,  more  lucid  in  expnsiiion, 
more  candid  in  temper,  has  been  submitted  to  theologians  for  many  years." 

Daily  NewK. 
"  The  ability  of  the  writer  is  unquestionable.  He  is  gifted  with  a  style  of  easy,  natural 
eloquence.  His  manner  of  dealing  with  each  separate  topic  which  he  brings  under  discus- 
sion is  clear  and  masterly.  On  reading  him  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  thinking  of  the  late 
Mr.  Henry  Buckle.  The  difi"erences  between  them  are  considerable,  but  there  are  marked 
features  of  likeness,  and  it  is  no  discredit  to  the  living  writer  to  say  that  his  readers  might 
very  often  imagine  themselves  to  be  studying  certain  added  chapters  of  the  unfinished  work 
of  the  great  philosophic  historian." 

D.  APPLETON   ^    CO.,  Publishers,   Nciu   York. 


A  History  of  European  Morals, 

PEOM  AUGUSTUS  TO  OHAELEMAGlfE. 
By  -WILLIJ^M  B.  H.  IjEC:Kir,  2£.  ^. 

2  vols.,  l2mo.     Cloth,  $3.00;  half  calf,  extra,  $7.00. 


Macmillan's  Magazine. 
"Mr.  Lecky  has  tre.-Jted  the  subject  of  European  morals  with  great  ability,  and  has 
written  a  book  of  great  interest.  He  has  brought  to  it  wide  and  intelligent  reading,  much 
acuteness,  and  considerable  powers  of  sympathy,  and  a  characteristic  boldness  and  sweep 
of  generalization  which  often  take  the  reader's  mind  by  storm.  The  remarkable  qualifies 
which  were  conspicuous  in  Mr.  Lecky's  former  book  are  present  in  this  one." 

The  London  Times. 
"  So  vast  is  the  field  Mr.  Lecky  introduces  us  to,  so  varied  and  extensive  the  informa- 
tion he  has  collected  in  it,  fetching  it  from  fat  beyond  the  limits  of  his  professed  subject, 
that  it  is  impossible  in  any  moderate  space  to  do  more  than  indicate  the  line  he  follows. 
.  .  .  The  work  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  our  higher  English  literature,  as  well  as  an  ad- 
mirable guide  for  those  who  may  care  to  go  in  person  to  the  distant  fountains  from  which 
Mr.  Lecky  has  drawn  for  them  so  freely." 

Pall  Mall  Gazette. 
"The  present  book,  so  far  as  its  historical  part  is  concerned,  possesses,  we  think,  all  the 
merits  of  its  predecessor  in  still  greater  maturity.  It  is  obviously  the  fniit  of  a  mind  sin- 
gularly full,  ripe,  judicious,  and  temperate  ;  a  mind  stored  with  the  results  of  an  immense 
and  well-digested  reading,  capable  of  retaining  and  surveying  large  masses  of  facts  at  once, 
and  of  placing  its  facts  in  due  relation  and  subordination  to  one  another.  The  book,  in  a 
word,  is  thoughtful,  clear,  accurate,  and,  above  all,  profoundly  interesting  and  suggestive." 

Albany  Evening  Times. 
"It  is  a  mine  of  information  in  a  restricted  but  important  province,  and  will  long  be 
quoted  for  its  thoroughness  in  opening  a  study  which,  though  touched  by  other  writers, 
never  before  had  such  exhaustive  consideration." 

Detroit  Free  Press. 
"In  his  methods,  Mr.  Lecky  is  a  model  of  clearness  and  force.    That  his  conclusions  do 
not  command  universal  acceptance  is  undoubtedly  true,  but  they  do  command  respect 
wherever  honest  thought  and  faithful  labor,  in  search  after  truth,  are  appreciated." 

Indianapolis  Journal. 
"  The  excellence  of  this  work  is  already  attested,  and  it  has  long  ago  been  considered  a 
standard.    The  controversial  portion  of  the  work  is  clear  in  its  statements,  and  so  mas- 
terly in  its  handling  of  the  salient  points  that  none  but  an  exceedingly  obtuse  person  could 
fail  to  catch  the  full  force  of  the  argument  presented." 

D.  APPLETO.V  &=  CO.,  Publishers,  New   York. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara  College  Library 
Santa  Barbara,  California 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
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